


Torchwoodgate, Episode One

by Soledad



Series: Torchwoodgate [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - the way I would have preferred it so I wrote it, F/M, M/M, McKay wanted to be a pianist, Rhys deserved better too, Suzie deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-11 19:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 102,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17453057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: What if the I.O.A didn’t want so much American influence and insisted on having control over the Atlantis expedition?





	1. The Reassignment

**Author's Note:**

> Timeframe: after the 1st season of Torchwood, pretending that it’s contemporary with the beginnings of SGA. This is an AU, obviously.

**CHAPTER 01 – THE REASSIGNMENT**

Jack Harkness had always praised himself of keeping good contacts to UNIT – ever since he’d taken over the leadership of Torchwood Three, that is. He was an ex-companion of the Doctor, after all, and the UNIT brass generally respected the Doctor very much. Jack and UNIT respected each other, too, especially since he’d brought considerable changes into Torchwood operations. He sent them regular reports, and they left him and his hand-picked team of misfits alone. Which, in his eyes, was the ideal solution.

So he was more than a little surprised when – about two and a half years after the Battle of Canary Wharf – he was called to the London headquarters of UNIT, for a meeting with the supposedly retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He knew, of course, that The Brig, as the great old man of UNIT was usually called behind his back, still had considerable influence within the organization. But as a rule he didn’t get involved with the daily operations.

Even more was he surprised to find the old man in the company of three women who couldn’t be any more different.

Two of them were obviously UNIT officers in the rank of Captains. One, a tough black woman, was probably in her early thirties, military to the bone and displaying a no-nonsense attitude that was a clear warning not to miss with her. The other one, a cold blonde of similar age, was a member of the Royal Engineers, according to her uniform insignia.

The third woman was a civilian in her late fifties or early sixties; it was hard to tell by the sight of her. She wore her unruly mass of russet hair - now generously shot with grey - in a loosely tied knot and had observant green eyes. There was something in her mannerism that all but screamed _scientist_ … which she most likely was.

There was also an elderly gentleman in the room, whom Jack recognized as Sir John Sudbury, a high-ranking civil servant with C19, a department in charge of the UNIT liaison. His mere presence made Jack very nervous. So far, Torchwood Three had managed to stay under the radar during the relentless clean-up following the destruction of Torchwood London, but… The Queen had dissolved the Torchwood Institute; was she probably about to close the Cardiff branch as well? _That_ would have been a personal disaster for Jack, even though the Rift no longer was _the_ place to find the Doctor for him. Torchwood Three was his family… an odd, dysfunctional family at times, but the only one he still had.

He carefully schooled his features to a neutral expression, which wasn’t an easy thing for him to do. An open face had always been his curse. He could keep secrets intellectually, better than most people, in fact – not that he’d have any other choice – but he also wore his feelings on his sleeve, and _that_ could lead to problems sometimes.

“Jack!” the Brigadier rose from behind his (borrowed) desk to great him in the usual heartfelt manner. “It’s good to see you again. It’s been years.”

“And you, Brigadier,” Jack shook the old man’s hand. “May I ask what this is all about? It seems… serious.”

“It is,” the Brigadier admitted. “Sit. We’ll do the necessary introductions later; although, I presume, you know Sir John Sudbury already.”

Jack nodded warily. “I do; and frankly, I wonder why he’s here in the first place. We never had any dealings with each other.”

“He’s brought the official papers from the Queen directly,” the Brigadier explained. “Well, there’s no easy way to break the news to you, Jack, so I’ll say as it is: Her Majesty is closing Torchwood, giving all Torchwood facilities into the care of UNIT.”

“May I ask what we’ve done to deserve it?” Jack asked, his nostrils flaring with barely suppressed anger. “My team had no part in Torchwood One’s reckless experiments. All we ever did was to protect Cardiff from alien threats… and we did a damn good job of it!”

“Did you really?” Sudbury challenged him. “Was it not just a year or so ago that your second in command tried to kill you – _and_ herself? If not for your… _gift_ , Torchwood Three would have fallen on the spot. And was your general support officer not hiding a half-converted Cyberwoman in your very basement? In the basement of your own headquarters, where you supposedly _live_? Frankly, Captain Harkness, you should be grateful that you and your so-called team aren’t rotting in a UNIT prison.”

Jack paled in anger, but before he could have said anything he’d regret later, the Brigadier raised a hand to stop his visitor.

“Sir John, these accusations lead to nowhere. I for my part am certain that Captain Harkness did his best to deal with a difficult situation. But he truth is, Jack, your team is broken. Torchwood has broken them… the things they’ve seen and done to protect the unaware have broken them.”

Jack thought of Suzie, Tosh, Owen, Ianto… practically everyone save Gwen, who blundered into their secrets cluelessly… he had to admit that there was some truth in _that_.

“So, what are you planning to do with us now?” he asked bitterly. “Retcon us back to our diapers and throw us out onto the street?”

“No,” the Brigadier said, although perhaps that was exactly what Sudbury would have suggested. “You’ll be reassigned.”

“Reassigned where?” Jack asked suspiciously.

“To an expedition on a remote outpost with a team of scientists and UNIT soldiers, to research alien technology and alien life,” the Brigadier replied. It’s a joint venture with several other states in Europe, with China and with the US Air Force.”

“That big, huh?” Jack still wasn’t quite buying it.

The Brigadier nodded. “That big. A hundred and fifty people, all together. It’s the biggest endeavour of the century, I’d say. There’s only one catch: there might _not_ be a way back.”

“What?” Jack asked incredulously. “What are you talking about? Are you sending us to Mars or whatnot?”

“No,” the Brigadier replied calmly. “Considerably further. We’re sending you to a different galaxy.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
For a moment, Jack was absolutely stunned. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked; then a thought occurred to him. “Or is the Doctor back in town? Is that why you want my team?”

“No,” the Brigadier said dryly. “This time, we’ll actually manage on our own.”

“On our own,” Jack repeated blandly. “We’re gonna visit a different _galaxy_ on our own. Has UNIT managed to capture and hot-wire a stray TARDIS or whatnot?”

“Not quite; for _that_ , we’d need a Time Lord, and you know that,” the Brigadier answered. “No, we’re using a device called a _Stargate_ – something an archaeological expedition found in Giza, Egypt, back in 1928. The US Air Force has got their hands on it, but they only managed to make it truly functional for the first time some eight years ago.”

“And that… _device_ enables us to travel to foreign _galaxies_?” Jack still wasn’t buying it, although if the TARDIS could do such a thing, why shouldn’t other pieces of advanced alien technology be able to do the same?

“In theory, anyway,” the Brigadier said. “It’s been used for travelling to other _planets_ – assuming the planet had a corresponding Stargate, that is – for years. Going to another _galaxy_ is, however, very energy-consuming. Hence the chance of no return.”

“That’s the part I actually do understand,” Jack interrupted. “What I don’t understand is why it has to be _my_ team. If we really are as broken as you all seem to think, then there surely must be better choices.”

“No, I’m afraid there aren’t, although God knows I’d wish there were,” Sudbury replied dryly. “But the sad truth is, Captain, that after the fall of Torchwood London, the only people with any sort of experience with aliens or alien technology are UNIT – and your bunch of miscreants. And as the I.O.A insists that this is supposed to be a civilian-led expedition, we can’t fill it with UNIT personnel alone.”

“If it’s civilian-led, what would you need _me_ for?” Jack asked. “I earned my rank on the battlefield, you know. It isn’t just a fancy.”

“Yes, we know who you are, Captain Harkness,” the elderly lady spoke for the first time. “ _You_ haven’t been selected as the expedition leader; _I have_ ,” she rose and shook hands with Jack. Her hand was dry but her grip surprisingly firm. “I am Dr. Elizabeth Shaw… or Liz Shaw, should have a common acquaintance of us – one who prefers to travel in a blue police box – ever mentioned me.”

Jack’s jaw hit the floor. “You were one of his companions?”

“When he was in his third incarnation and exiled on Earth, yes,” the lady replied. “He was quite the arrogant bastard at that time, I must say. I heard he’s changed considerably since then, though.”

“He still has his moments,” Jack said wryly. “So, if _you_ are the boss, then what am _I_ supposed to be?”

“The military commander of the expedition,” she answered simply, and Jack’s jaw hit the floor again. “Why are you so surprised? As you said yourself: you’ve earned your rank honestly. I happen to know that you’ve fought in more than just one war… and you’re known as someone who’s good at improvising. We’re heading towards the great unknown – people who’re capable of thinking on their feet will be of great value. And you know your way around alien technology, too.”

“That I do,” Jack allowed. “But do you really expect the UNIT soldiers to obey _me_?”

“No,” the Brigadier gestured towards the uniformed black woman. “We expect them to obey _her_. Captain Erisa Magambo will be your executive officer and will deal directly with any potential disciplinary issues. _Including_ those involving _you_.”

“My watchdog, then,” Jack said bitterly. “Or my jailor?”

“Nonsense,” the Brigadier replied. “Captain Magambo is a very capable officer, who even manages to co-operate with scientists on a semi-friendly basis. She’s worked with the Doctor in a major crisis, so she’s used to expect the unexpected. But more importantly, she’s able to keep the troops in line, no matter what. She’ll be your liaison with the soldiers.”

“ _And_ my watchdog,” Jack repeated, not confirmed at all.

“That, too,” the Brigadier admitted bluntly. “Let’s face it, Captain; you _do_ have a certain… _reputation_ when it comes to ignoring the rules. Consider her as your common sense.”

Captain Magambo flashed him a broad, almost predatory grin. “Don’t worry, Captain,” she said. “I won’t bite… unless you leave me no other choice.”

 _That_ didn’t sound very promising, but Jack wisely decided not to make any flippant remarks. He’d find the time to work the infamous Harkness charm on the lady officer later. Besides, he still felt as if he would move around in thick mist. All others present clearly knew a great deal more about this assignment, and he found it was only right if they shared some of that knowledge with him.

“You’ve mentioned this I.O.A. repeatedly,” he began. “It seems I’m the only one who’s never heard about it. So, if I’m supposed to be the military commander of an expedition sponsored by those guys, it would be helpful if I knew who they actually are.”

Dr. Shaw nodded in agreement. “You’re right, of course. I.O.A. is short for International Oversight Advisory. It’s a coalition of countries who are aware of the existence of the Stargate and regularly informed about the activities of Stargate Command. It’s composed of representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and China, mainly, but includes other technologically advanced countries like Russia, Germany, Japan and so on. Ever since the Stargate Program was disclosed to other countries, this organisation has carried substantial influence in determining how the program is run and funded. Even though the actual operation is mostly done by the US Air Force.”

“And the other countries would _love_ to change that, right?” Jack asked.

The Brigadier nodded. “Indeed. When the Gate Alliance Treaty was signed, a specific agreement was included that any knowledge learned from travel to other planets will be openly shared with all signing countries. The wording of the official document does not negate military advancements, and may not apply to studies which are in-progress, but the final results.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Jack said. “So what went wrong?” 

Because the phrasing of the Brigadier’s explanation clearly suggested that _something_ had gone wrong.

“Some countries under the treaty, particularly China, have argued that the US military has not fulfilled its promise to disclose all Stargate-gained information and intelligence,” the Brigadier replied.

“And? Are they right?” Jack asked.

“In several points, it seems,” Sudbury answered in the Brigadier’s stead. “So the signing countries formed a united front within the I.O.A. and applied enough pressure to achieve control over the Atlantis expedition, while leaving the Stargate Program in the hands of the US Air Force. They also wanted to cut back the control of the military over interplanetary research, which is complete where the Stargate Program is considered.”

“Well, seeing how much of a majority UNIT seems to have in this expedition, they won’t exactly achieve _that_ ,” Jack commented cynically.

“Nonsense,” Dr. Shaw said. “All scientists, with the exception of Captain Price here, are civilians; and most of them have no connections to UNIT at all. They come from all over the planet, and the only common trait among them is that they’re the best and the brightest.”

“And how’s _my_ team gonna match that category?” Jack asked doubtfully. “With the exception of Tosh… and perhaps Suzie, when it comes to alien weapons… they’re neither scientists, nor military.”

“Nonetheless, they’ve got special talents we can put to good use,” Dr. Shaw replied. “Your Mr. Jones will work as my PA. His organizing talent has already become legendary, as well as his coffee; both will be sorely needed. Dr. Harper is versatile and knowledgeable; all he needs is a strong hand to lead him. I think he’ll get along with Dr. Jones and Dr. Beckett well enough. As for Miss Cooper, well, she can make herself useful as a member of civilian security.”

“What civilian security?” Jack frowned. “I thought UNIT would take care of security matters.”

“UNIT will take care of military operations,” the Brigadier corrected. “The I.O.A. insisted on having civilian security personnel going with the expedition; mostly former detectives from different countries, under the leadership of a certain Mr. Naseband from Germany. He also used to be in charge of the peacekeeping troops in Kosovo for a while, so he’s very experienced. We intend to assign some officers from the Cardiff police to his team, as they’re more or less used to deal with… unusual things. You’ll consult Detective Inspector Henderson about this, Jack.”

“I thought this whole stuff is supposed to be top secret,” Jack said.

“It is,” the Brigadier agreed. “We’ll Retcon him afterwards and give him a plausible story. Don’t worry, he hasn’t got much of the stuff yet – there’s no danger that we might overdose him. We’ve learned from our past mistakes, Jack… _and_ from yours.”

“And you still believe the Americans would agree to leave military matters completely in your hand?” Jack shook his head. “I doubt they’d agree to _that_.”

“Not completely,” the Brigadier said. “There will be _one_ Marine squad, independent from the American scientists, led by an SGC veteran Master Sergeant. They’ve been to dozens, perhaps hundreds of other planets in the recent years, so they’ll be very useful for you… for the whole expedition.”

“Yeah, but they won’t like to be commandeered by an officer from a foreign armed force,” Jack reminded him. “US Marines are… stubborn that way.”

“They won’t have to,” the Brigadier said. “They won’t be under UNIT command. They’ll answer directly to you. That’s the other reason why you’re a key player in this game, Jack. You’re an officer, and you’re American. They’ll accept you.”

“I’m a _pilot_ , which, in the eyes of any self-respecting Marine, is only slightly better than vermin,” Jack pointed out. “And you know damn well that I’m no more American than you are. Where I come from, ancestry no longer plays a role.”

The Brigadier shrugged dismissively.

“Technicalities, Jack. You have the dual citizenship, and you have the documents. They may be forgeries, but no-one will ever be able to prove _that_. We’ve taken care of the paper trail; the rest is up to you.”

“I see,” Jack said. “I assume there’s no way to refuse the assignment, is there?”

“Not for _you_ ,” the Brigadier replied bluntly, “and it would be better for your team if you could persuade them to accept.”

Seeing Jack’s furious expression, Dr. Shaw patted his hand in a motherly manner.

“Don’t be so angry, Captain,” she said. “You’ll see, we’ll work together just fine.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Jack found it better to break the news to his team one by one, considering that they had very different ways to react to the unexpected. He began with Ianto, hoping that the young man, once having processed the news, would be a great help with making the others accept.

As expected, Ianto took everything in stride. Someone who’d survived the Battle of Canary Wharf and the reawakening of Abbadon wasn’t so easily shocked anymore.

“It would sadden me if I could never see my sister and her family again,” he admitted, “but other than that, there’s very little that would bind me to Earth.”

“That’s by no means certain,” Jack said. “Earth _nearly_ has the prototype of the long-range hyperdrive starship working. In a year or two, they may be able to bring us back, even if we can’t power up the Stargate on the other side enough to return the same way we go.”

“Perhaps,” Ianto said. “But _nearly_ isn’t _exactly_ , and who knows what’s gonna happen to it between then and now? It’s always best to be prepared for the worst case scenario, ain’t it? That way, the only surprises are pleasant surprises.”

And that was that, as far as Ianto was concerned.

The next step was approaching Tosh, who was considerably less enthusiastic by the thought of leaving Earth with possibly no way to return.

“The five years I’ve been indentured to Torchwood are almost over,” she reminded Jack. “One more year, and I could have seen my mother again.”

“You can refuse to come with us, you know,” Jack said gently. “Although we’d miss you very much. At least I’m sure Ianto and I would. But ultimately, it’s your choice.”

“No, it isn’t,” she replied bitterly. “Do you really think UNIT would leave me alone? I’d be back in their prison before you’d have left Earth. They won’t even do me the courtesy of Retconning me into oblivion. I’m only safe as long as you’re within reach.”

She was most likely right about that, and Jack hated the thought that she wouldn’t get a real choice in the entire matter.

“I’m sorry,” he offered a little uncomfortably. Unexpectedly, Tosh smiled at him.

“Don’t be,” she said. “You saved my life and my sanity; and despite everything, I enjoyed my work at Torchwood. Besides, working with a large group of scientists again will be… inspiring. Have you seen the preliminary crew manifest? There are a few interesting names on it.”

“Yeah?” Jack asked with interest. “You know some of those guys? I mean aside from Dr. Shaw and Professor Taylor?”

Everyone with even occasional brushes with UNIT knew Professor Taylor. The man was one of the foremost scientific advisors of the organization – the best-known UNIT scientist currently employed. It was small wonder that he’d been selected for the expedition.

Tosh nodded. “Dr. Svetlana Markova is absolutely brilliant – the best the Russians can offer, and despite common belief they do have a lot of talented people. And I had the chance to read the latest thesis of Dr. Peter Grodin – it’s groundbreaking where computer imaging systems are concerned. Dr. Miko Kusanagi I’ve met on a conference in Tokyo, a couple of years ago… before I started working for you. She shares Grodin’s field and is very gifted. And Dr. Zelenka, although he comes from a small Eastern-European Country, has already made a name for himself, working both with the Russians _and_ for the US Air Force. They’re the best of the best, Jack!”

“So are you,” Jack smiled at her, glad to see her in happy geek mode once again; it had happened so rarely in these days. “I hope you’ll enjoy your time in such exalted company.”

“Oh, I will, never worry about _that_ ,” Tosh replied. “It’s the not coming back part that concerns me.”

“Well, you wonder geeks surely will figure out a way to bring us back,” Jack laughed and kissed her on the brow. It was so good to see at least one of his team happy about the new assignment – even though he still had serious doubts, himself.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
After having gained the acceptance of two of his most easy-going team members, Jack approached Owen next. Since subtlety would have been lost on the acerbic doctor, he decided for a frontal attack. He laid down the bare facts for Owen and told him that he’d either accept or be Retconned back to kindergarten. Owen scowled a lot, of course, but when he realized that he’d be working with Dr. Carson Beckett, he quickly reconciled with the situation.

“You know the guy?” Jack asked in surprise. 

Apparently, he was the only one without a clue about their future co-workers. Well, the only one who counted, as Ianto had probably already researched every single one of them, hacking into top secret databases with frightening ease to get every bit of information they might find useful, and Suzie… Suzie simply didn’t care. She’d stopped caring more than a year ago, when she’d tried to get away and failed.

“I’ve heard of him,” Owen replied. “Beckett is the best geneticist this country can come up with, and also a very good surgeon. He used to work freelance for Torchwood Glasgow, identifying alien DNA… that sort of thing. It’s all in Archie’s reports, if you cared to read them.”

“So you never actually _met_ the man?” Jack asked.

“Once, at a medical conference organized by UNIT,” Owen shrugged. “He’s a friendly, peace-loving teddy bear. You’ll love the accent, though,” he added snidely. “If Teaboy’s makes you all hot and bothered every time, wait till you’ve heard Beckett’s.”

Jack gave him a headcuff that Owen avoided in the last second, and with that, Owen was dealt with, too. Which meant that Jack couldn’t avoid any longer speaking with Suzie. He had to admit that he was still a little uncomfortable around her – he’d trusted her an she’d killed him, after all, not to mention that he’d all but shot her to death in exchange. 

Their relationship might never be what it had used to be, but Suzie was very skilled and useful… and he couldn’t dare to Retcon her. She was unstable enough already. Unstable, but brilliant… and a real workhorse. In an expedition with only a hundred and fifty members, _that_ was an important aspect.

She accepted the news fatalistically. She didn’t have anyone left for whom she’d care. Yes, her father still lay in hospital, dying, but he’d been lying that way for years, and she’d never bothered to even visit him. In fact, she’d never even mentioned him. Had Ianto not checked out her personal background with his usual efficiency, Jack wouldn’t even know that she _had_ a father to begin with.

“And you really want to take me with you to somewhere where you might not be able to watch my every moment?” was all she asked. Ever since the incident involving Jack’s death by her hand, she’d been living in the Hub, under constant surveillance.

“I want you to see the good stuff, too,” Jack answered quietly, because Suzie was the one who’d been broken by Torchwood most thoroughly. “The beautiful stuff, not just the ugliness we’re used to face day to day. It _is_ beautiful out there, Suzie; I’ve seen it. And I want _you_ to see it, too. You deserve to get out of the Hub again. To have a life, if you still can.”

For a moment, Suzie just stared at him, completely flabbergasted. Then she suddenly began to cry. Jack took her in his arms and simply let her cry. Perhaps if she let go of all that bitterness and disappointment, or at least part of it, she’d find back to some semblance of normalcy again.

It still didn’t mean that he’d allow Suzie to work without someone looking over her shoulder all the time. Which was the reason why he intended to get in touch with Mickey Smith again. As another ex-companion, Mickey stood a good chance to be accepted by UNIT; _and_ he was experienced when it came to alien technology and weapons. With a little luck, Jack would be able to sell him for the technician team as Suzie’s co-worker.

That left him with one final decision to make: whether he should take Gwen with them or Retcon her and send her back to the police… and to his good-natured, long-suffering boyfriend. On the one hand, he’d long regretted having hired Gwen at a whim of his heart (or of his hormones, as Suzie had put it). She sure as hell hadn’t fulfilled half a percent of his hopes, and he seriously doubted that he should let her loose on an unprepared team in a foreign galaxy. She was a trouble magnet.

On the other hand, she’d already proved to have a high level tolerance against Retcon – although Ianto kept insisting that the reason had simply been Jack misdosing the stuff. Whatever the true reason might be, he felt responsible for her… for keeping an eye on her and the potential damage she could cause by acting without thinking and blithely ignoring any orders she might be given.

He still hadn’t made the decision when Martha Jones unexpectedly called him.

“Jack, I’ve been reassigned to the same outpost as you,” she said in a business-like manner. “I’ve also been asked to go to Cardiff and perform certain… tests on your team.”

“What kind of tests?” Jack asked, immediately alarmed. It had been his constant fear ever since Rose had made him an immortal freak that he’d end up as a lab rat somewhere.

Martha already knew that, of course. “No need to worry,” she assured him hurriedly. “These tests aren’t dangerous, in any way. I’ve had them, too. _All_ selected expedition members are being tested.”

“What for?” Jack demanded, still deeply suspicious.

“I can’t speak about it,” Martha answered. “Not even _this_ channel is secure enough for that, and I’m calling you from the medical research lab of UNIT. You simply have to trust me that it’s completely harmless. You know I’d never lie to you – or harm you or those you love in any way.”

“Oh, I do trust you,” Jack said grimly. “It’s UNIT I’m not so sure about anymore.”

“It’s not an order from UNIT,” Martha said. “Look, we’re testing people for a rare and specific gene that’s crucial for this assignment.”

“You mean those who don’t have it can’t go?” Jack asked, hoping for a way out.

“No,” Martha replied. “I mean those who _do_ have it can’t get out of the assignment. Not if they ever want to do any other work than washing dishes in a pub.”

More she wasn’t willing to reveal, and she left Jack with a rapidly building headache and the promise that she’d be arriving in Cardiff within forty-eight hours.


	2. The Chosen Ones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. There are some altered lines from "Reset" and CoE Day One. Obviously.

**CHAPTER 02 – THE CHOSEN ONES**

Ianto was lounging at the counter of the tourist office, despite the fact that it was 1.15 in the night. Not that such late working hours would have been a rarity at Torchwood, of course. The strange aspect of it was being in the _tourist office_ , instead of down in the Hub, flicking through a magazine instead of staring down at whatever alien – or unfortunate human victim – Owen chose to obduct at such a late hour.

It was actually nice. He’d saved this particular magazine – a recent issue of _Cinefan_ about the new James Bond movie that was just being shot – for weeks, to savour it in a leisure hour. Only that he hadn’t _had_ a leisure hour for weeks… and with the shutting down of Torchwood Three and handing everything over to UNIT, he wasn’t going to have one, either, in the foreseeable future. Especially with all the stuff Jack wanted to be destroyed and all traces of it removed from the Archives _before_ UNIT could lay hand on them.

So he was determined to make the most of this unexpected night of calm, finally getting to read his magazine. He’d brought up a thermos of his best coffee with him, had some light music playing in the background and was generally enjoying himself while he was waiting for Jack’s VIP visitor to arrive.

Jack had been quite secretive about this mystery visitor – that is, more secretive than usual. All he’d been willing to say was that this Martha Jones person had been sent by UNIT’s medical division to give them a physical before their new assignment would begin, and that the two of them went back some time. Ianto hadn’t needed much thought to realize that they had to have met through Jack’s Doctor.

Nonetheless, he was willing to give the lady the benefit of the doubt.

The slight squeaking noise of the door pushed open interrupted his musings, and he suppressed a sigh. He had hung up the **Closed** sign hours ago, but that hadn’t prevented various groups of tourist to come in anyway, just because they could see the light still on inside. He’d even had to bodily remove a few of them, as they had not seemed to understand what _closed_ meant.

Now the bell was jingling, too, and he looked up and down the elegant black woman with a martyred expression.

“Sorry,” he said as politely as he could manage. Dammit, but he wanted to finish the magazine tonight! “We’re closed.”

The woman just looked at him, smiling, and held out an ID-card to him. One with the UNIT logo and her own picture on it. Ianto snapped to attention at once, flustered, and hurried along the counter to the button that opened the secret gateway to the Hub.

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” he said apologetically and pushed the button. The front door snapped closed and the doorway to the Hub opened in the side wall. Ianto gestured towards it. “This way, please.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
They found the rest of the team in the autopsy area, where Owen was – what else? – performing autopsy on the latest Weevil victim. Well, Jack and Gwen were there anyway, Gwen bickering with Owen as usual, while Jack tried to do something useful. Like figuring out the murdered man’s identity by searching the pockets of the clothes lying over the back of a chair.

Tosh was working on her computer, and Suzie was welding something at her workstation, ignoring the happy couple… or not-so-happy couple. Actually, Ianto was almost sure that the appearance of the lady pilot, Diane Holmes, uprooted from her own time by some quirk of the Rift, had pretty much put an end to whatever there might have been between Gwen and Owen. Unfortunately, that fact didn’t keep them from bickering like an old married couple all the time… on the contrary.

Ianto touched his headset, not wanting to yell all across the hub. “Jack, your VIP visitor is here,” he said.

The three in the autopsy area looked up, displaying very different reactions to the news. Owen was irritated, Jack suddenly started grinning like a fool (although there still was some wariness in his eyes that Ianto couldn’t quite explain), and Gwen… Gwen was confused, perhaps even a little insulted.

“I didn't realise we were having a visitor,” she said accusingly, giving Ianto a baleful look, as _he_ clearly had been informed in advance.

Jack didn’t even listen to her. He ran out of the room, straight to the cog door, as the alarms set off, and grinned at the woman who was walking in after Ianto.

“Suddenly, in an underground mortuary, on a wet night in Cardiff, I hear the song of a nightingale,” he declared in a theatrical manner. 

Ianto rolled his eyes tolerantly while the woman grinned back at his boss.

“Miss Martha Jones,” Jack introduced her with a grand, sweeping gesture.

“That’s _Doctor_ Jones to you, Captain,” the UNIT lady replied in a stern tone; then she broke into a wide, genuinely happy smile and hugged him spontaneously. “Oh, it's good to see you, Jack!”

“And you,” Jack replied, hugging her back. “Meet the team: Suzie Costello, my second-in-command, Owen Harper, our medic…”

“ _Doctor_ Owen Harper, thank you very much,” Owen corrected snidely. “Just because I no longer treat patients it doesn’t mean I’ve lost my M.D.”

“Toshiko Sato, our resident computer genius,” Jack continued, ignoring Owen with an ease that came from long years of practice, “and Gwen Cooper, police liaison. Oh, and this,” he added, with a wink in Ianto’s direction, “is our general support officer, Ianto Jones. Ianto gets us fed and caffeinated, gets us to places in time, cleans up our mess and keeps the Archives in proper order, which happens for the first time in what? Twenty years? Thirty?”

“Something like that, sir,” Ianto agreed amiably.

“ _And_ he looks good in a suit,” Jack added, eyeing his young lover with proprietary pride.

“Careful, that’s harassment, sir,” Ianto delivered the punch line at the right moment, as always. Not that anyone within Torchwood would have taken it seriously.

“Oi, Teaboy, don’t make such a fuss,” Owen scowled. “As if you weren’t shagging like bunnies in every free hour.”

“Which were none of your bloody business, even if we _did_ have any free hours around here,” Ianto replied calmly.

“No hair-pulling in front of a guest, kids,” Jack warned them.

Owen gave their guest a wary look. “So, is this just a casual visit, or…?”

“I’m here to run some medical tests,” Martha told him.

“Doctor Jones is from UNIT,” Jack added.

Gwen stared at him in open-mouthed, wide-eyed confusion. “Oh, I'm sorry, sorry,” she babbled apologetically, “I get a bit confused. Which one's UNIT?”

There was a collective eyeroll from the rest of the team, because honestly, after a year and a half, she really ought to know it. It wasn’t so as if Jack wouldn’t be yelling at the one or other UNIT officer on the phone at least once a week. Besides, it was all in the files, if one bothered to read them.

“Intelligence, military, cute red caps,” Jack explained unhelpfully.

“The acceptable face of intelligence gathering on aliens,” Ianto corrected. “Which is why we send monthly reports to them. We're… more ad hoc.”

“But better looking,” Jack added with that self-satisfactory grin of his; then he looked at Martha and hurriedly back-pedalled. “Present company excluded, of course.”

That earned _him_ a collective eyeroll from the rest of the team, but their reaction didn’t make him back off a step. Why changing his behaviour now when the end of Torchwood Three and all he’d been worked for all those years was imminent anyway?

“Come on, Martha, be honest,” he said with his most charming grin. “You just came all this way to see me.”

She gave him a superior raised eyebrow. “Still struggling to conquer your shyness, Jack?”

“And losing,” Ianto muttered, just loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Before Jack could think of a flippant answer, Owen rather rudely interrupted them.

“So, what about those tests you’re here to run on us, _Doctor Jones_?” he asked, with a definite edge in his voice.

“You’ll get your complete physical – which, by the way, should have been done annually – when we get over the pond,” Martha explained, completely unbothered by his manners (or the lack thereof). “Right now, this is just a simple blood test. As I’ve told Jack, we’re testing people for a rare and specific gene only a small percentage of the human population possesses. It’s called the ATA gene, and…”

“Wait a minute,” Owen interrupted again. “I’ve never heard of a gene like that, and I’m better versed in genetics than most medics.”

“It’s short for Ancient Technology Activation gene,” Martha explained. “The ATA gene instructs various cells in the body to produce a series of proteins and enzymes that interact with the skin, nervous system and brain, allowing the gene carriers to operate Ancient technology; if the user does not possess the gene, the technology will not activate.”

“Genetically encoded tech?” after years of working for Torchwood, there wasn’t much that would still surprise Owen, but now he was baffled. “And _humans_ have this alien gene that can make it work?”

“ _Certain_ humans,” Martha corrected. “Although speaking of _alien_ tech is probably misleading. The Ancients, the ones who’ve created this technology, were the first evolution of humanity, who evolved millions of years prior to the present day and reaching their level of technology long before humanity evolved on Earth. They were the builders of the Stargates, which they spread across many planets of our galaxy. We still don’t exactly know what the status of Earth used to be in their empire, but we do know that – like on several other planets – they chose to sow the seed of life here.”

“And that’s why some of us have this weird gene you were speaking about,” Owen realized. “It must be a sturdy one, if it’s still active after… how many years of mingling?”

“It was ten thousand years ago that some of them returned to Earth, after having colonized the Pegasus galaxy, as far as we know,” Martha replied. “To our best knowledge, that was the only time they interbred with us, humans… but yeah, it seems that the gene is very sturdy indeed. It isn’t equally strong in each carrier, though. Mine, for example is barely good enough to operate simple medical equipment. Doctor Beckett – who discovered the gene in the first place – could fly Ancient spaceships with his mind alone… were he not deadly afraid of actually _using_ his gene. Others are somewhere in-between, I’m told.”

“And a simple blood test can tell you whether any of us does have the gene… and how strong it is?” Suzie asked, a little doubtfully. At least the topic had brought her out of her gloomy mood… she always had a great interest for alien technology.

“It shows whether you have it or not,” Martha corrected. “As for how strong it is… I’ve borrowed a few harmless little toys that only work for gene carriers. I’ll measure the time the tool needs to react to your gene, and that will tell us how strong it is.”

“Cool!” Jack started liking the idea. _This_ was something not even he had ever run into during his numerous journeys, with or without the Doctor. “When do we start?”

“Tomorrow, if that’s all right with you,” Martha said. “I’m really tired; and since you’ve requested Mickey as part of your team, I called him to come to Cardiff, so that I can test you – all of you – together. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Jack smiled fondly. “It’ll be good to see Mickey again. I missed him.”

“Yeah, the two of you used to travel together for a while, I heard,” Martha nodded.

“Mickey, what Mickey?” Gwen asked, confused. “Jack, who’s this bloke? When did you travel with him? Was he a Time Agent, like you? Like that Captain John, or whatever he calls himself?”

“Hell, no!” Jack laughed; the mere idea of comparing Mickey with John was ridiculous. “Mickey Smith is a decent guy of your own time. He just used to travel with the Doctor for a while, like me. Our travels… overlapped for a short while.”

“Which Doctor?” Tosh asked.

“The one you’ve met; _and_ the current one, both,” Jack replied. “We both preferred the previous one, actually; although Martha here would probably disagree.”

“Hey, I only ever knew the current one,” Martha said; then she looked at Tosh with interest. “When did you meet him?”

“During the Slitheen invasion in London,” Tosh shuddered. “He saved my life; still, it’s not a pleasant memory.”

“Tosh met the _Doctor_?” Gwen’s eyes widened to impossible dimensions. “There were more Doctors? Then why are you always speaking of _the_ Doctor?”

“It’s always the same one,” Jack replied, a little impatiently. “He just changes his appearance at time. _And_ his personality. He regenerates as a wholly different person when killed, although he does keep his memories.”

“You mean he’s immortal like you?” Gwen insisted.

“No,” Jack replied bitterly. “Not like me. He gets the chance to change, to evolve… and after a while, his time runs out and he’ll die for good, like everyone else. It just takes him longer than most people. Only I’m cursed to live forever… _if_ you can call my unnatural existence a _life_.”

Gwen opened her mouth to say something to protest, but Jack’s venomous glance made her shut up, There was a long, uncomfortable silence; then Ianto stirred.

“Have you booked a hotel room in advance, Doctor Jones?” he asked. “If not, I’d be gladly of assistance.”

“Ianto has _connections_ ,” Jack revealed in a conspiratorial manner. Martha laughed.

“I can imagine that. But I’ve booked in advance, thanks. I’d love a lift to the _Mercury Lodge_ , though, as I’m new to Cardiff, and I left my luggage in storage at the railway station.”

“I’ll drive you,” Jack offered. “Everyone else – go home! I’ll see you at nine in the morning. Get some decent sleep… and Ianto, that includes _you_ , too.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
“So, how’s the family?” Jack asked, driving the Torchwood SUV through the nightly Cardiff towards Martha’s hotel in his usual, reckless manner. She laughed gently, but her eyes were clouded.

“Getting better,” she replied simply. “They send their love.”

“Give them mine,” Jack said. He had fond memories of Martha’s family, especially of her mother who’d all but adopted him after the Year That Never Was. “You know, you could have called me if you were looking for a job.”

“I wasn't,” she answered. “This woman from UNIT rang out of the blue, right after I’d finished medical school, and said I was just what they needed.”

“What woman?” Jack asked, although he did have an educated guess.

“Doctor Elizabeth Shaw,” Martha replied. “I was wondering how she’d find me, of all people, and she said that I'd come highly recommended by an impeccable source.”

“You mean the Doctor?” Jack asked in surprise. Martha shrugged.

“Who else would have done it?

“He must have thought he owed you a favour,” Jack mused. “I guess we all do. So, what is it? Medical officer?”

“Oh, yes,” she said with deep satisfaction.

Jack grinned. “So do I have to call you ma'am?”

“No,” she replied with twinkling eyes. “Just follow my orders to the letter.”

They laughed. After a short pause, Jack asked carefully. “Do you miss him?”

“No,” she replied promptly. “I made my choice.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about the good Doctor Milligan,” Jack smiled. “He must be quite the extraordinary fellow to capture your heart, I guess.”

“He is,” Martha agreed a little sadly. “It was beautiful while it lasted.”

“What do you mean _while it lasted_?” Jack asked, shocked. “Is it over already?”

“Not for the lack of love,” Martha clarified. “But… you know what it’s like. People like you and me have a hard time to adapt to life as it used to be again. And the Atlantis expedition… they don’t need a doctor of Tom’s area of expertise. I cannot take him with me… and I don’t want to lie to him, to make him wait for me, while I might never return.”

“So you broke up with him,” Jack realized. “That must have been hard.”

“The second-hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Martha admitted. Jack didn’t ask what _the_ hardest thing had been. He could make an educated guess. “Which is why I’m so glad to see you,” she added. “Right now, I can use a friend who… who knows what things were like.”

“See, you _did_ come all this way just to see me,” Jack said in mock-seriousness. “It's the jaw line. Once seen, always yearned for.”

As he expected, she couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, sure!”

“So, do you think this… this Atlantis expedition is worth the risk of getting lost for good?” Jack then asked. Martha nodded.

“I’ve spent weeks studying the data provided by Stargate Command, and yeah, if there’s the faintest chance to find anything useful to defend Earth, then we _have_ to try. In the past seven years, there have been alien threats we haven’t even heard of; the planet has nearly been destroyed several times. I’ve copied the data for you and will give you everything I have, so that you can make your own picture… but I think you’ll agree with me. Besides, how often do we get to see a foreign galaxy? That’s something I’d hate to miss.”

“Well, there’s that,” Jack agreed and pulled up the SUV in front of the _Mercury Lodge_. “See you in the morning, then. Looking forward to studying those data.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
In the next morning, Martha returned to the Hub in the company of a handsome young man, as dark-skinned as she was, yet considerably less elegant. Jack greeted the guy with a bear hug nonetheless.

“Mickey!” he exclaimed. “Man, you look good. Have you got my message?”

“Sure thing,” Mickey replied, “and if you can make the UNIT brass accept me, I’m game. There isn’t anything that would keep me here, and working with you guys again will be fun.”

“I’m sure li’l Miss Highfalutin' here can put in a good word for you,” Jack grinned at Martha.

“Leave it, Jack,” she replied easily, while taking various odd-looking items out of her carry-all and placed them on the conference table. “Now I’ll do those blood tests, and then you can play with these toys here, to test your ATA gene – assuming you do have one.”

“Oooh, nice!” Gwen, who was arriving somewhat late, due to a little domestic squabble with Rhys – those seemed to happen more and more frequently in these days – picked up one of the tools with interest. “What is it? A new design for mobile phones? I’ve never seen one like this…”

The thing came alive in her hand and started blinking and beeping loudly. Startled, Gwen dropped it and even stomped on it instinctively, as a child would on a scary-looking insect.

“That is… _was_ a life-sign detector,” Martha replied in exasperation. “And it appears that you do have the ATA gene, or else it wouldn’t have reacted to you.”

“Did I break it?” Gwen stared at the clearly broken instrument with her mouth hanging open. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry… I didn’t mean to drop it… I was just curious… and now it’s broken….”

“Oh, for the love of God, shut up, Gwen!” Suzie picked up the… the _life-sign detector_ and turned it back and forth. “I’ll see if I can fix it… just don’t break anything _else_ for a while, will you?”

“Why do we need the blood tests to begin with?" Ianto asked Martha, while handing her a cup of his best coffee. “If those Ancient gadgets react to the gene so spectacularly, all we have to do is to grab them, right?”

“It’s not that easy,” Martha explained, inhaling the scent of her coffee with an expression of pure bliss. “Some Ancient tools – mostly weapons and key machinery – only ever work for gene carriers. Others only need to be initialized by someone with the gene after a lengthy period of being unused, and then they’ll work for everyone. Others only react to people with a very strong gene. It’s different with each piece, and since the Ancients didn’t believe in technical manuals, it’s pretty much touch and go, most of the time.”

“Sounds like Suzie’s field of expertise,” Jack commented, and Ianto nodded in agreement, because that was very true. Suzie was the best at figuring out how previously unknown pieces of alien tech worked and what their purpose might have been. It was too bad that she tended to take unnecessary risks.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
So Martha took blood samples from them, and while she and Owen were working on the analysis – they seemed to work surprisingly well together, considering that they’d just met the previous day – the others had coffee and biscuits, and Jack used the time of waiting to finally debrief Gwen, too. Since she obviously did have the gene, they couldn’t afford _not_ to take her to Atlantis. With Ancient tech likely to pop up in the most unlikely places, who could tell what kind of chaos she might cause by starting off things no-one knew what their original purpose had been. So she needed to know what she was about to face.

Jack used the SGC’s introduction vids that Martha had brought on DVD to give them all a crash course on the Stargate Program – including himself. It was just the general info, restricted to the basic facts (they’d be debriefed in detail once they’d relocated to the States, Martha had promised), but even so, it was overwhelming.

Watching the reactions of his team was an interesting experience, too. Suzie was watching with avid interest. Her eyes lost that creepy, dead quality they’d shown during the last year and a half. Tosh was in happy geek mode, full of curiosity and excitement and just a little scared. In his spare moments while waiting for the results, Owen joined them, too. He seemed to have lost his customary scowl and stared at the screen with his mouth hanging open. Ianto seemed his usual, collected self, but his eyes were gleaming. And Gwen… Gwen was hesitating between excited like a schoolgirl and scared shitless. 

All in all, as positive a reaction from each and every one as it could be expected. Mickey was watching the vid with the professional interest of an ex-companion who’d seen it all and wasn’t easily surprised anymore, but even he couldn’t completely conceal his excitement.

When the vid had run out, Martha came back from the lab to announce the test results.

“Well we seem to have a case of the luckies here,” she said. “According to the tests, except of Suzie, Owen and Mickey all have the gene. It’s statistically near-impossible, but those are the facts. Congratulations, Jack; you, Ianto, Tosh and Gwen have just bought your ticket to the Pegasus galaxy.”

“What about us?” Owen asked, clearly disappointed.

“Being a gene carrier isn’t a requirement to become an expedition member; it’s an added bonus,” Martha replied. “You’ll come with us, of course; your knowledge concerning alien life and technology is invaluable. You’ll just need help with certain pieces of Ancient tech, that’s all.”

“We’ve got three weeks to make full inventory and shut down everything here, before UNIT takes over,” Jack added. “That concerns mostly Tosh, Ianto and me. I suggest that the rest of you tie up all lose ends you might have, order your things, say your goodbyes… just in case.”

Just in case they wouldn’t be coming back. He didn’t need to say it. They all knew the odds were fifty-fifty.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Three weeks later they were almost ready to go. Their personal possessions had been put into storage, all records and alien items Jack didn’t want UNIT to get their hand on had been destroyed or whisked away to be sent to the States under false labels (they might prove handy in the Pegasus galaxy, Jack commented). They had said their goodbyes, and UNIT had booked them a flight to Colorado Springs, where they would have six weeks to go through the ultra-condensed SGC training, get their shots, get debriefed in detail and all that.

 _All_ of them, including Mickey and PC Andy Davidson, who’d been chosen to become part of the expedition’s civilian security, alongside of Gwen.

“Why on Earth did you pick PC Andy, of all people?” Ianto asked in surprise. He, Jack and Tosh were working out the logistics with Martha, who – though officially _not_ the chief medical officer of the expedition – was currently their liaison to UNIT. “He’s just a beat cop, like Gwen used to be; and he doesn’t even have the gene.”

“Yeah, but he used to work with Gwen and knows what she’s like,” Jack pointed out. “We must take Gwen with us, so we’re gonna need someone who keeps an eye on her. She’s a trouble magnet on her own.”

“The same way we’re taking Mickey with us to keep an eye on Suzie,” Ianto said slowly, withstanding the urge to quote the old saying about pot and kettle, because honestly, if someone had the tendency to get into trouble on his own, it was Jack. “I think I’m getting the picture. But Jack, if we only have a hundred and fifty expedition members to choose, can we afford to take these two? At least Suzie knows her stuff and Mickey is experienced when it comes to foreign worlds, but Gwen and Andy…”

“The I.O.A. wants civilian security, so they’ll _get_ civilian security,” Jack replied with a shrug. “The Germans are sending ex-cops as well; and PC Andy actually isn’t half bad. He’s a team player, he gets along with people well enough, _and_ he’s had extensive weapons training while with the armed forces before he joined the police. What he doesn’t know about alien tech, he can learn. He’s still young – and he has no family of his own. No widow or orphaned kids, should we not manage to get back.”

“Speaking of family,” Tosh injected, “What are we gonna tell Rhys? Some shadowy tale about Special Ops?”

“We can just tell him the truth – and then Retcon him,” Jack suggested.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Ianto said. “I know Gwen has already Retconned him a few times – I keep close watch on our Retcon storage, as you know – and we still don’t know anything certain about cumulative effects. Besides, do we know if Gwen wants to come with us at all? They were planning to get _married_ , after all.”

“Oh, I think she wants to come very much,” Jack grinned. “That’s all she’s talking about in these days… although she hasn’t given me a straight answer yet.”

“Leave her to me,” Martha said. “I’ll get her answer within the day; there’s nothing like a little girl talk. There’s another matter that needs to be addressed, though. Jack, what are you and Ianto planning to do about your… whatever this is between the two of you?”

Jack looked at her in surprise, while Ianto was blushing furiously. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Martha was choosing her words carefully, “that you can no longer ignore what people think about you. You, Jack, are about to become the military commander of an international expedition; and Ianto will be the PA of the expedition leader. You’ll be authority figures in a small, closed community and might not see other people for a very long time. You can no longer afford to be caught in the men’s room, with your trousers literally around your ankles. Some of the people you’re gonna to live and work with probably haven’t been brought up to be particularly… _tolerant_. Think about it.”

“Are you suggesting that we break up?” Jack asked in shock and could see from the corner of his eye that Ianto had suddenly turned deathly pale.

“On the contrary,” Martha replied. “I suggest that you legalize your relationship."

“You mean… a civil partnership?” Jack asked. Martha nodded.

“Yeah. There might be some people who won’t accept it, but since it’s legal in _our_ country, at least you’ll be protected by the law. It would also empower you to make certain… hard decisions for each other, should the need arise. As legally wedded spouses, you’ll count as next of kin.”

She didn’t need to go into detail about what those decisions might be. They were all aware of the risks. Still, her suggestion had caught both men unaware.

“You do have a point,” Jack finally said, almost reluctantly. “What do you think, Ianto? Should we give it a try?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for such a big step yet,” Ianto admitted. “But Martha is probably right. We’ll need the protection of the law,” he flashed Jack a rueful little smile. “We can always decide to get a divorce if it doesn’t work out, you know.”

Jack sighed. “This wasn’t exactly how I’ve imagined it would be, but…”

“How you’ve _imagined_?” Ianto repeated in shock. “You’ve… you’ve thought about it… about a civil partnership before?”

“Oh, yes,” Jack nodded with emphasis. “Ever since I came back. I just wanted to get there slowly. I thought we had the time. But as things are now...” he shrugged helplessly.

Ianto looked at him, long and hard, as if trying to see into his very heart.

“All right,” he said. “Ask me then. I don’t need the flowers and the chocolate, but I want you to _ask_. Properly, if I’m to do this without given time to weigh the pros and the contras.”

They all expected Jack to go in the knee theatrically or to make some other overbearing gesture – that would have been the trademark Harkness thing to do. Instead, he simply took Ianto’s hand and smiled; not that wide, thousand megawatt, shit-eating grin that was plastered all over his face most of the time, but a small, genuine, very private smile.

“Will you marry me, Jones, Ianto Jones?” he asked jokingly, but his eyes were unusually bright. He had been married before and thought he’d never ask anyone ever again. Yet here he was, trembling with anticipation, although there could be very little doubt about the nature of Ianto’s answer. Or so he hoped, forgetting even that he’d eventually lose Ianto, too, just as he’d lost everyone else whom he’d loved.

“Yes, Captain, my Captain, I will,” the young Welshman replied in the same light-hearted manner; then he added, a little more seriously. “I just hope we won’t regret this.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jack promised; then he looked at Tosh. “Hey, Tosh, how fast can you organize a wedding?”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Tosh went to work with he usual efficiency – she was almost as good at organizing things as Ianto himself – and four days later, right before they’d board their plane to the States, there was a small ceremony in the _Mercury Lounge_ , the same hotel in which Martha was staying. Family only, which included the Torchwood team, of course. Even so, it was quite the crowd for such a small banquet room.

Ianto’s sister, Rhiannon, came with her husband, a big, loud, good-natured Welshman by the name of Johnny Davis, and with their two children. Their son got to carry the rings, while their little daughter was very disappointed that she couldn’t be the flower girl, due to the acute lack of a _bride_. For the same reason, there were no bridesmaids, either.

Gwen brought Rhys with her, while PC Andy came alone and looked a little lost among all these strangers. Jack’s daughter, Alice, came too, with her little son who didn’t even know that _Uncle_ Jack was actually his grandfather. The revelation that Jack had a daughter and a grandson shocked the Torchwood gang pretty badly – with the exception of Ianto, of course, who’d found out about their existence in the second week after he’d joined the Cardiff branch. Being the archivist did have its advantages, especially if one liked to poke around in old documents.

Contrary to Jack’s pro-marital jitters, Ianto’s family took the news in stride. It had to be a Welsh thing. Or a Jones thing; Jack wasn’t entirely sure which one and wasn’t going to question his good fortune. In any case, the meeting with the in-laws for the first time went unexpectedly well.

“It was something of a shock,” Rhiannon, seated on her brother’s side on the banquet, admitted after the ceremony. “Since you brought Lisa home, I’ve always thought you’d want the same thing most guys want: a wife, family, kids…”

“I wanted that with Lisa,” Ianto replied quietly. “Oh, I wanted that very much. But Lisa died when Torchwood London was destroyed, and I couldn’t imagine that with somebody else. It just... it just didn’t seem _right_ , you know?”

“So you’ve gone and married a man instead?” Rhiannon shook her head in bewilderment. “I never knew grief could bend you that way.”

“I’m not _bent_ that way,” Ianto frowned. “It’s not that I’ve turned around completely and sworn off women or whatnot. It’s just… just _Jack_. And we probably wouldn’t have tied the knot at all if not for this reassignment. Americans tend to be… hostile towards gay couples sometimes.”

 _At least their military is_ , he added in thought, but he didn’t mention _that_. There was no need to frighten his sister. She was concerned enough by the fact that they wouldn’t be in touch for some time.

“He’s very handsome,” Rhiannon eyed Jack critically, who indeed looked dashing in his dress suit. “Is he treating you well? ‘Cos if he doesn’t, the planet won’t be big enough for him to hide from me. You tell him that.”

“I will. Thanks, Rhi,” Ianto kissed her cheek and tried _not_ to remember that soon Jack would be safely out of Rhiannon’s reach for the foreseeable future. Several times over.

And unfortunately, so would he. It was a sobering thought.

Being the prick that he sometimes could be, Johnny Davies tried to tell the one or other stupid gay joke on the banquet – until Tosh planted herself firmly in front of him (she barely reached to his shoulder) and promised him to break his arm if he didn’t shut up.

“I’d listen to her,” Owen warned in the overly serious manner of the _very_ drunk. “She’s a killing machine, believe it or not. Black belt in several martial arts and all that shit.”

Which was an outrageous lie, of course – Toshiko’s strength was in her brains and her technical skills, not in her muscles – but most people tended to believe the silliest things about martial arts. So Johnny paled and backed away from the tiny, bespectacled Japanese girl one third his weight in a great hurry. The scared look on his face was a thing of beauty to behold.

Owen laughed so hard afterwards that he nearly wet himself.

Alice had a harder time to accept that his Dad would marry again – and a man this time, one considerably younger than her, at that. But Ianto at his most charming self soon won her over, and she began to see the advantages of such a union.

“At least the two of you won’t have the problem of your children looking older than him,” she said with a slightly bitter undertone. _That_ fact had broken her mother and was still burning _her_ , too. She was just an ordinary human being, with the very human vanity to go with it.

“I don’t know about that,” Ianto deadpanned. “He keeps telling us that he’s been pregnant before. I’ll have to be careful not to knock him up right on our wedding night.”

 _That_ finally made Alice laugh – it looked good on her, softening her sharp features. She was a good-looking woman, actually, and now Ianto could see a little of Jack in her face.

“You shouldn’t believe Dad’s stories for a moment,” she said. “I’m sure he’s making them up as he goes.”

“Perhaps,” Ianto allowed. “But it’s very entertaining to try figuring out which ones might have a kernel of truth. It’s better than television.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Jack intervened. “She’s prejudiced. All my stories are true, to the letter.”

“Oh?” Ianto raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “What about the lies, then?”

“ _Especially_ the lies,” Jack prompted. “You people simply have no imagination.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
After the banquet, there was dancing, of course, and wedding gifts and congratulations, and everybody had a grand old time. With the possible exception of Rhys Williams, that is. Gwen’s long-suffering boyfriend was standing in a corner, with an untouched champagne flute in his hand, and watched Gwen dancing with Ianto bitterly.

This should have been _their_ wedding. They’d been planning to get married ever since Jack Harkness had vanished for months, but since his return, Gwen had been putting the wedding off again and again. There had been moments when Rhys seriously doubted that it would happen at all. He didn’t know anymore when Gwen was telling the truth.

Well, perhaps now that Harkness was taken, Gwen would accept reality and stop evading him. One way or another, they needed to talk about their future.

Dancing with Ianto, Gwen smiled up into the young man’s face with just a little too sweetly for it to be genuine.

“So, Ianto, isn’t it a bit strange to marry a man whose daughter is older than you?” she asked.

“Women do this all the time,” Ianto replied without missing a beat. “And think of the honeymoon on which we’re gonna go. A different _galaxy_ – not every bloke can offer you that, can they?”

And he smiled with the satisfaction of having rendered Gwen Cooper absolutely speechless.


	3. The Gathering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different. Dr. Chandra Suresh and his family are modelled after the similarly-named characters from the series “Heroes”. However, as you’ll see, they’re not the same characters. They only served as templates, to give the reader something familiar to lean on.
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to the lovely fanarts_series, to comfort her for the acute lack of McKay in the following parts. My heartfelt thanks to artemis10002000 for the quick beta.

**CHAPTER 03 – THE GATHERING**

The news about the fate of the Atlantis expedition hit the SGC like a _naquadah_ warhead. Especially those who’d been crucial for the Stargate Program since the beginning had a hard time to believe – not to mention _accept_ – that they’d have no access to the Lost City of the Ancients they’d sought after so long.

Assuming that Dr. Jackson was right and they _had_ , in fact found Atlantis, that is.

“And there’s nothing we can do?” Daniel asked General O’Neill glumly.

O’Neill shook his head. “Afraid not. I’ve tried everything I could, and so has the President. But the Russians – and even more so the British – have made so much pressure that we had to back off this time.”

“But they don’t have the experience with dealing with aliens!” Daniel protested.

“Apparently, they do,” O’Neill corrected. “Their organization has been battling aliens since the 19th century, it seems. But that doesn’t really matte here. Te point is, they got the job, and we’re out of the game. They agreed to take some of our geeks and _one_ Marine squad, but that’s it.”

“I’m ready to go,” Daniel said promptly.

“No,” the general returned without missing a beat. “I need you here. Besides, Teal’C would miss you.”

“Indeed,” the big, stoic Jaffa declared solemnly.

“Not to mention the fact, that Doctor Shaw, the expedition leader, requested Corrigan,” Carter supplied.

“Eric Corrigan, from SG-15?” Daniel asked in surprise. “Well, he’s a good enough anthropologist and linguist, I guess, but why him? There are other talented people working for other SG teams.”

“Yeah, but Corrigan is Canadian, and so he’s _almost_ considered being one of theirs,” Carter said. “Even though he’s been living in the States for a decade or so.”

“In other words, it all comes down to politics,” Daniel sighed. “Who else is in from the SGC?”

“Simpson, Petersen, Kavanagh, Zelenka,” Carter frowned, trying to remember the other names. “Grodin, Kusanagi, Beckett… and Paul Hays, I think.”

“Not McKay?” Daniel asked in surprise. “But she’s the best, isn’t she? And she’s Canadian; one would think they’d want her.”

“You forget who’s been chosen to lead the science section,” Carter reminded him. “Last time McKay and Markova were forced to work together, it nearly came to bloodshed. Repeatedly.”

“Markova!” O’Neill whistled in appreciation. “She’s one tough lady. At least the science section will be in good hands.”

“The others aren’t half bad, either,” Carter said. “This Doctor Malcolm Taylor, eccentric though he may be, has an excellent reputation. And I’m sure the rest of them will be chosen from the best and the brightest, too.”

“I still wish I could do with them,” Daniel groused. O’Neill rolled his eyes.

“Daniel, you wouldn’t go even if this were an all-American, Air Force-only expedition – jut to set _this_ aspect straight. You’re needed here, and that’s the end of it. Deal with it, for crying out loud!”

Daniel kept sulking but O’Neill ignored him.

“Carter, in two days the foreign scientists will start filing in. For the next six to eight weeks all Gate activities will be kept at a minimum, on behalf of training the newbies. Even not counting those who’re already working for the SGC, that means more than a hundred people. It won’t be easy.”

“But certainly interesting,” Carter grinned, clearly looking forward to show her fellow geeks the ropes.

O’Neill shook his head in exasperation. Scientists. He’ll never understand them.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
“Colonel Carter!” Dr. Svetlana Markova, as regal and exotic as ever, shook Sam Carter’s hand heartily. “It’s good to see you again. I’ve followed your career with great interest.”

“And I yours,” Sam replied. “I’ve read your latest thesis about theories of particle transport, and the physics of non-neutral plasmas – it’s absolutely brilliant! A shame it won’t be published in the foreseeable future. Just like…”

“… just like _your_ book about wormhole physics,” Markova finished for her. “I don’t really mind, you know. Those who _count_ have already read it, after all.”

They both laughed; then Markova became serious again.

“Colonel, I’ll be honest with you. I’m pleased with this assignment; I’ve waited all my life for a chance like this coming my way. But I regret that it means for _you_ to _lose_ the same chance.”

Sam waved off her apologies.

“Don't concern yourself on my behalf,” she said. “I most likely couldn’t have accepted anyway. My fiancé and I are planning to marry within six months… I’d never go on a mission I might not come back from. Besides, I’ve been to enough foreign planets already – I’m considering a reassignment to Area 51, to help working on the new hyperdrive ship.”

“You’re getting married?” Markova’s jewel-like eyes glittered with very female interest. “To a fellow scientist or to a fellow soldier?”

“Neither, actually,” Sam smiled. “Meredith is a name-worthy concert pianist… although he _does_ spend his spare time with constructing highly unusual electric musical instruments and studies the wavelength theory.”

“A pianist _and_ a theoretic?” Markova repeated in honest surprise. “Where did you meet such a man to begin with?”

“He’s the brother of Doctor Jeanne McKay, one of our best people working for Area 51,” Sam explained. “She says her brother would be _at least_ as gifted as she is; she was very frustrated when he abandoned a promising scientific career, _just to become a musician_ – her words, not mine.”

“They are not getting along, are they?” Markova nodded in understanding. “I remember Doctor McKay from the time when she used to help us with our _naquadah_ generator programme. She… isn’t an easy person to work with.”

“I know,” Sam sighed. “I _do_ work with her occasionally.”

“And you’re still marrying her brother?” Markova wondered.

Sam’s smile turned gentle and intimate. “Meredith is nothing like his sister. Granted, he _is_ a little eccentric, but most artists are… _and_ he’s warm, funny, witty and talented. What’s even more, he has nothing to do with anything I work on all the time. It’s… relaxing.”

“He must be a remarkable man,” Markova said a little enviously. “I wish _I had_ someone like that. But in Russia you have to give two hundred per cent… or you get replaced and forgotten. If you’re _very_ lucky.”

“Is that the reason why you accepted the job?” Sam asked. Markova nodded.

“Partially, yes; not that I had the chance to say _no_ , but I’d have accepted voluntarily if asked. The chance to be cut off completely is a great chance for me. A chance of true freedom.”

“I can see the attraction,” Sam said. “You said _partially_ , though. What’s the other part?”

“Why, the chance to work with previously unknown Ancient technology, of course,” Markova laughed. “Who wouldn’t be tempted? If you had the chance – and if you weren’t engaged – wouldn’t you go in my stead?”

“I most likely would,” Sam admitted. “Although, in a way, I’m almost glad that I can’t. This way, I can hope for a semi-normal life with Meredith… as far as it’s possible for such diagonal opposites as we are.”

“He truly must be a remarkable man,” Markova said.

“He is,” Sam smiled; then an idea occurred to her. “You know what? He’s giving a concert in Colorado Springs on Saturday. I’m planning to participate, and I’ve got a second ticket. Come with me, I’ll introduce him to you.”

Markova hesitated for a second, then she nodded. “I’d very much like that,” she replied.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The concert of Meredith McKay took place in the _Stargazers Theatre and Event Center_ – a multi-use, circular dome building that could accommodate private and public events. Since the Center could be used by two hundred and fifty people banquet style, the concert was also supposed to serve as an informal get-together for the future members of the Atlantis expedition and their colleagues from the SGC who were going to train them in the use of Ancient tech, in Gate travel and the likes.

Accordingly, the event started with a small reception in the foyer of the concert hall, where introductions were made, including lots of small talk. Markova, wearing a shoulder-free evening gown of deep burgundy red brocade, with her heavy dark curls tumbling down over her bare shoulders, turning half of the males present into open-mouthed, slack-jawed idiots, was reunited with Dr. Zelenka, with whom she’d worked together in Russia for a while, building _naquadah_ generators. The little Czech looked unusually well-groomed in his somewhat oversized but otherwise spotless suit – and, as always, seemed to know just about everyone. At least from hearsay.

As they were standing there and chatted about old times, Markova spotted a strinking male couple in the crowd, where they seemed to be holding court. At least the older man certainly was: a tall fellow, almost ridiculously good-looking in his tux. With his broad shoulders, boyish face, high cheekbones and very bright blue eyes, he appeared younger than he probably was. Like a movie star, shaped to look forever young. His mannerism spoke of easy self-confidence; the fact that he chose such a spiky hairdo to his traditional outfit spoke of the same. He knew that he could pull it off. The other man was younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties; very neat and composed in his impeccable three-piece-suit, with a cute button nose and soulful blue eyes.

“Do you know those two?” Markova asked Zelenka. As if there could have been any doubt.

“Whom?” the little Czech blinked owlishly for a moment – he was still jet-lagged, having been flown in from Antarctica the evening before – but then his eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, them! They’re part of British contingent. Tuxedo man is one Captain Jack Harkness, selected for military commander of our expedition. His companion is Doctor Shaw’s chief aide, named Ian… no, Ianto Jones.”

“They look very close,” Markova eyed them with interest. “Have they worked together before?”

Zelenka nodded. “They were both Torchwood… whatever _that_ is. Besides, they’re both married.”

“You mean their wives are friends, or related somehow?” Markova asked. Zelenka’s grasp on foreign languages could be uncertain at times… unless it was about something mathematical.

“ _Ne, ne_ ,” he replied. “I mean they’re married to _each other_ ,” he gave her one of those charming little smiles. “Is legal in United Kingdom, you know – they call it civil partnership, I think.”

Now that she knew what to look for, she could see the matching wedding bands they had on their hands.

“I know it’s legal in their country,” she said thoughtfully, “but is it wise to flaunt it into everyone’s face? Some people might prove less… understanding.”

Zelenka shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better to confront people with facts than let them find out everything slowly, on their own. If somebody is troubled by the fact that they’re a couple, there’s still time for such folks to step back, yes?” He spotted someone in the crowd and smiled apologetically. “Oh. I see Doctor McKay has arrived. I must go and use last chance to exchange heartfelt insults.”

“You’re still talking to her?” Markova, too, spotted the Canadian scientist on the other side of the foyer. It wasn’t hard, considering the wide breadth people gave her. “After the way she used to treat you… and everyone else?”

“Oh, she is… _challenging_ sometimes,” Zelenka agreed with a shrug. “But working with her was very inspiring. Besides, she liked me.”

“She was never able to mark your _name_ ,” Markova pointed out. “You were always just _Zablonski, Zeremba, Zaftig… that Czech whose name I can’t remember_ for her.”

“Yes, but she always admired my brains,” Zelenka replied. “She said I wasn’t quite such a moron as other scientists she had to work with. Coming from her, it was a compliment. If you’ll excuse me,” he smiled at her and made his way to the sour-faced blonde standing lonely on the other side of the room.

For a moment, Markova shook her head in amazement and asked herself whether Toivannen had been right and Zelenka actually _did_ have a crush on McKay. It wasn’t that McKay would have been an ugly woman, or even a plain one – she’d have been pretty enough if not for the permanent scowl on her face. Perhaps Zelenka could see things in her nobody else had been able to discover so far.

Markova shook her head, firmly pushing the very idea of Zelenka and McKay having _anything_ but a working relationship into the farthest corner of her mind (because, honestly, that was a scary thought she didn’t feel up to face just yet) and decided to use the opportunity to meet their future military commander under informal circumstances. She did know a great deal about Jack Harkness and his strange team, of course – no-one could work for secret government projects for as long as she had without making a few good friends at the Russian intelligence service – but she wanted to see if there was any truth to the rumours.

She walked over to the group around Harkness, hiding a smile as some people recognized her and hurriedly gave way. She might not be McKay, but she did have her own reputation, _plus_ she was Russian… a fact that made people wary about her, most of the time. She walked up directly to the man in the focus of general attention.

“Captain Harkness?” she asked, allowing her accent to come forth more than usually. It was a tool to draw attention; a tool which she used sparsely but felt needed right now. “I believe we haven’t been introduced yet. I’m Svetlana Markova. _Doctor_ Svetlana Markova, that is. I was chosen to lead the science division.”

The man gave her an almost-too-bright smile that would have made most other women week-kneed and kissed her hand with old-fashioned flourish.

“I’d remember someone like _you_ if we had,” he replied flirtatiously, and despite knowing better, she felt pleasantly flattered by the compliment. “Jack Harkness, at your service. And this,” he gestured to the young man on his side who was rolling his eyes good-naturedly over his antics, “is my… well, are you the husband or are you the wife, actually?”

“ _Spouse_ ,” the young man said with emphasis and kissed her hand courteously, too. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am. My name’s Jones. Ianto Jones.”

“Do I hear a certain homage to James Bond?” Markova asked with a faint surprise. Somehow she hadn’t expected Harkness’ faithful shadow so be so… playful in front of an audience.

“He’s a devoted fan,” Harkness told her in a conspiratorial manner.

“I am,” his young spouse admitted. “Bond movies seem so… _normal_ , compared with our daily life. I find them relaxing.”

The pretty Japanese woman standing with them shook her head tolerantly. “Only you, Ianto. Only you can find a Bond movie relaxing.” Then she shook Markova’s hand enthusiastically. “Delighted to meet you, Doctor Markova. I’m Toshiko Sato,” then she waved in the direction of the other woman. “Suzie Costello, our weapons expert.”

Markova found the bitter-faced Suzie Costello intriguing. The woman was clearly of South-Eastern origins, despite her name – most likely Indian. She wasn’t beautiful in the way Hindu paintings or sculptures were beautiful; her features were too harsh, too uneven for that, and she clearly would never be any man’s plaything. There was intelligence glittering in her dark eyes and willpower etched into that strong face… but also a great deal of bitterness and disappointment. Markova had been told that all Torchwood people were broken somehow, having survived great tragedies and horrible dangers, but Suzie Costello was the only one by whom that fact was _showing_.

But she _had_ to be something special if she got selected first for Torchwood and then for the Atlantis expedition – even after an attempted suicide and despite not having the gene – and so Markova was willing to give her a chance. It wasn’t as if _she_ wouldn’t have a few skeletons in her cupboard, either.

“My pleasure, Ms. Costello,” she said. “I’ve heard about your expertise with alien technology and am looking forward to working with you.”

For a moment, there was genuine surprise on the other woman’s face; then Suzie gave her the ghost of a smile. Of a _very_ small and tentative one.

“So am I,” she replied. “Colonel Carter speaks in the highest tones about you.”

“And I’ve only been telling the bare facts,” Sam Carter, radiant and beautiful in her simple, elegant evening gown, walked up to them and took Markova’s arm. “Come with me, Svetlana Mihailovna. We still have a few minutes left before the concert starts, and I’ve promised to introduce you to Meredith.”

“And I wouldn’t miss _that_ for the world,” Markova smiled. “If you’d excuse me, Captain… we’ll have ample time to learn to know each other better.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
She left with Carter, and soon Toshiko excused herself as well, spotting Dr. Kusanagi in the crowd: a slight Japanese woman in a simple dress that seemed as if she’d borrowed it from someone taller and wider than she was, obviously ill at ease. But as she saw Toshiko, her round face lit up in recognition, and she even rediscovered her ability to smile.

“She’s actually cute,” Jack commented, glad that Tosh had at least _some_ other people she knew among the expedition members.

“According to Tosh, she’s also brilliant,” Ianto said. “At least someone will be able to understand her when she’s in geeky mode.”

They laughed – even Suzie managed a half-amused grimace – and then decided to mingle a little. The audience was certainly… colourful, mirroring the multinational nature of the expedition. Jack had expected the Chinese to be there in great numbers – after all, China was one of the most influential I.O.A members –but it wasn’t so. A surprisingly high percentage was made up by Indians, though, the women wrapped into their beautiful _sari_ s, while the men were wearing white trousers and silky jackets in loud colours. 

Jack was surprised to spot Owen, chatting animatedly to one of them: a broadly built, bearded man in his early sixties, with a small, round cap on his bald head.

“I didn’t know Owen had friends in India,” he said.

“He hasn’t,” Ianto replied,” he’s just paying his respects.”

Jack gave him a queer look. “You’re putting the words _Owen_ and _respect_ into the same sentence?”

Ianto shrugged. “He _does_ acknowledge true authority. He just says it’s extremely hard to find it,” he explained.

“Well, he seems to _have_ found it,” Jack commented.

Ianto nodded. “Yeah, but it isn’t surprising. The man he’s talking to is Doctor Chandra Suresh, one of the best geneticists on this planet; also one of the oldest expedition members. He used to work with Doctor Beckett at the _Institute of Genomic Research_ , specialising at Goa’uld genetics. The tall young man with him is his son, Mohinder, also a name-worthy geneticist _and_ an expert of parapsychology.”

“ _Parapsychology_?” Jack repeated doubtfully. “Is that a scientific discipline nowadays?”

“Don’t be fooled by the name,” Ianto answered. “Someone like him may prove useful, should we run across things like our ghost machine.”

“You mean he comes with us?” Jack had studied the crew manifest repeatedly but had still a hard time to remember all those names. That was Ianto’s area of expertise.

“He and his wife _and_ their children; also his sister, who happens to be one of the oceanologists,” Ianto replied. _Of course_ he’d know such details.

“Wait a minute, there’ll be _children_ in this expedition?” Jack couldn’t quite believe his ears. Ianto shrugged.

“Well, their entire family goes, should they leave the kids behind in the care of strangers? Several other married couples are gonna bring their children, too. It’s only logical, cos what if we can’t come back? This way, at least they’ll be with their families.”

“But it can be dangerous out there!” Jack pointed out.

“Because it’s so safe here, on Earth?” Ianto asked soberly. “Jack, neither of us has ever set foot on another planet aside from you, and see the things that happened to us! The Daleks, the Cybermen, the Slitheen, the Sycorax, the Sontarans… they’ve all come to _us_! The Weevils are still among us – we don’t need to leave Earth to be killed by aliens.”

“He does have a point,” Suzie commented dryly.

“True,” Jack admitted reluctantly. “Still, children…”

“See it from the bright side,” Ianto said. “They’ll grow up among the greatest minds mankind can offer, cherished and protected cos they’re _precious_. They’ll learn to deal with technology beyond human knowledge and will see wonders beyond imagination – I don’t see why we should feel sorry for them. Few people will ever get the chance they have.”

Jack could hardly _deny_ that. He didn’t doubt that the children would probably consider this a great adventure. He still felt uncomfortable about the fact that there would be children, though, perhaps even very young ones. Being responsible for their safety was something he hadn’t been prepared for.

“How many?” he asked.

Ianto looked at him in surprise. “How many _what_?” he asked back.

“How many children will be there altogether?” Jack clarified.

Ianto briefly searched the biological database commonly known as his memory.

“Six that I know of,” he finally said. “The three of the Suresh clan; Doctors McNab and Moore, the oceanologists from Scotland, have two small daughters, and Mr. Naseband has a thirteen-year-old son whom he raises alone. Of course, the Russian geologists haven’t transmitted their personal data yet, and Doctor Donaldson and his wife haven’t decided whether to bring their sons or not so far.”

“What about those Canadian botanists?” Jack asked.

“Doctors Brown and Parrish?” Ianto shook his head. “They don’t have any children. Not yet.”

“You mean they’re planning to have children in _Atlantis_?” Jack was slack-jawed with shock for a moment.

“Not right away, I’m quite sure about that,” Ianto replied with a shrug. “But if we can’t come back – why not? That’s _life_ , Jack – for most of us, this is the only way of immortality that we can gain: to keep living on in our children.”

Well, if he put it that way, it made sense, Jack assumed. Of course, Ianto wouldn’t have even _that_ chance, unless… _No_. He stomped down _that_ thought with determination. He was _not_ getting pregnant ever again, and that was _final_.

Ianto saw the honest panic on Jack’s mobile face, guessed what his spouse was thinking and laughed quietly. “Don’t panic, Jack. I never expected you to wait for me in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, while I’m out saving the world, just because you _could_.”

“Do you realise how disturbing this whole topic is?” Suzie pulled a face. “Thanks for the mental image, Ianto. Now I’ll have to scrub my brain with industrial strength bleach for at least a week to get over it.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow at her. “Really, Suzie, after all that time working for Torchwood, you should be less narrow-minded. What’s male pregnancy compared with all those alien reproduction methods recorded in the Archives?”

“Those were all in safe distance, both in space and in time,” Suzie pointed out. “Now, could we just drop the topic before I get sick and go to the concert hall? Or do you want to arrive late?”

Jack grinned at her and offered her his arm. Then he offered his other arm to Ianto, and they walked into the concert hall together.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
They found Gwen and Andy already there, the latter one revealing a certain knowledge about the classical composers whose pieces were to be performed tonight.

“My parents insisted that I learn to play the piano as a child,” he explained. “I bloody _hated_ it; but at least I learned who these blokes had been. Comes in handy when I have to impress girls with refined tastes.”

“I never knew Andy was this… well-informed,” Gwen added, duly impressed. “Not that I’d be interested in classical music, but it sounds cool when he talks about it, doesn’t it?”

She looked at Andy with newfound respect she’d never shown him while they’d been working together – and even less so afterwards. To Jack’s relief, though, Andy didn’t show any particular reaction - which, in Jack’s esteem, was a good thing. The last thing they needed in a small, closed community, potentially soon stranded in a foreign galaxy, would have been Gwen starting a new office romance… or re-heating an old one. The thing with Owen had been uncomfortable enough for everyone to watch; they couldn’t wait for Owen to get bored with her and move on.

“Have you sent your goodbye-message to Rhys?” Jack asked, seemingly out of contact, but the anger hushing across Gwen’s face clearly showed that the rebuttal had hit home.

“Just this afternoon,” she replied, her eyes filling with tears within seconds. “Poor dear, it was such a hard thing to do. I _hate_ to hurt him, I really do.”

“You could have stayed home with him,” Jack reminded her simply.

Gwen stared at him in shock. “But Jack, how could I? You _need_ me here! There are so few of us, and Suzie, Owen and Mickey don’t even have the gene – _I do_!”

“Yeah, sure, how would we’ve _ever_ managed to survive in a far-away galaxy without Gwen-bloody-Cooper to protect us,” Suzie muttered darkly.

That she’d turned out _not_ to have the gene – which would be a serious disadvantage in her work – while Gwen, who wouldn’t really need it, had, still didn’t bode well with her. She’d never made a secret of her dislike of Gwen, but lately things had been really tense between the two of them.

Gwen opened her mouth to answer something… and left it hanging open because in that moment, in a thunder of applause, the star of the evening finally arrived on the stage. And boy, was he a sight to behold! Even Suzie, a lot less fallible to male charms, stared at the man speechlessly, and Jack’s eyes widened in appreciation.

Meredith McKay was probably in his mid-thirties, and surprisingly broadly built for someone who earned a living as a star musician. Instead of the traditional tails, he was wearing a simple black suit with an open-necked white dress shirt, but without he usual bowtie. Collar-length, wavy brow hair, combed back like the mane of a lion, framed a strong-featured, sarcastic face that was dominated by piercing, almost electric blue eyes, and there was a certain arrogance in the way he moved around, hinting of someone who knew all too well what he was worth and was used to be celebrated, considering it his due.

“Close your mouth, Jack,” Ianto commented dryly. “You’re drooling.”

Well, he wasn’t, not exactly… but wasn’t far from it, either. Jack snapped his mouth shut and shot Ianto a rueful smile. The young Welshman smiled back at him.

“It’s all right to look,” he said. “Just don’t do it so obviously. It makes you look retarded.”

Imagining what he must have looked with his mouth hanging open – presumably just as stupid as Gwen was still looking – Jack grinned at Ianto in relief, grateful for his understanding. He couldn’t help being attracted, but that didn’t mean he’d _have_ to act on it and, fortunately for him, Ianto understood that.

McKay bowed to his audience and took his place at the piano. Some pretty blonde in an evening gown that left very little to imagination walked – walked? _swayed!_ in – to announce the first piece of the program. There was a moment of silence, while McKay’s hands hovered above the ivory keys – then he began to play.

Jack had attended to quite a few concerts in his long life. He’d heard the best of the best in the last two centuries and developed a deep appreciation for the musical talent. Now, he was awed. Simply awed. Both McKay’s technique and his interpretation of the well-known classical pieces were unparalleled. The man was simply a genius, and if that made him a little arrogant, well, he had every right to _be_ arrogant. In all those years spent on Earth Jack had never heard anyone playing the piano quite like that.

Small wonder that Colonel Carter reportedly didn’t mind too much _not_ having gotten Markova’s position on the peak of Atlantis’ science division. That would have meant to leave _this_ man behind, and even if she might have done so, doing what she considered her duty, it would have made her one unhappy woman. No, it was better for the expedition members to either be single or to bring their families with them. Even if it meant for the children to grow up in an alien environment.

For a moment, Jack wondered whether he should have tried to persuade his daughter to come with him. Not that he’d have succeeded; Alice had made it adamantly clear, early on, that she wanted a normal life, as far from her father’s job and freaky nature as possible. It had hurt like hell back then, but somehow Jack could understand her. 

Still, the thought that he might never see her – and his grandson – again was a painful one. He’d have lost them anyway, sooner or later, just like he lost everyone, but he’d have loved to see Stephen grown up.

He felt a warm hand squeeze his suddenly cold one.

“Stop brooding,” Ianto murmured, displaying that uncanny knack of his to know exactly what was bothering him. “I’m here, and I intend to stay with you for a long time.”


	4. Preparations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 04 – PREPARATIONS**

Jack found Stargate Command awesome, and - considering all the things he’d already seen in his unnaturally long life - that was saying a lot. But honestly, who’d have guessed that _this_ was buried beneath Cheyenne Mountain? There were floors and floors of top secret labs and research units – not unlike what had once been in Torchwood Tower, at least according to Ianto. He’d never seen anything but the staff offices at Headquarters, himself.

And then there was the Stargate itself – this huge, magic ring of incredibly advanced technology that spat out subspace like a fountain of water and connected Earth to countless other planets across the galaxy. Or _galaxies_ , if the preliminary information had been correct. Who’d have guessed? Only the TARDIS could be more awesome.

He’d been here a week already and, in good old Jack Harkness fashion, he’d connected with most of the expedition members. Granted, the SGC had made it easy for him. There were training sessions, both informational and physical. They were getting debriefed on a daily basis about previous Stargate missions, about everything concerning the Ancients, whose lost city they were supposed to find in the Pegasus galaxy – hell, they were even given language lessons, so that they would be able to read (and hopefully understand) inscriptions written in Ancient, even if neither of the two linguists was in reach. 

They learned to use various sorts of weapons, including a strange alien gizmo called a _zat’nikitel_ that had three settings, like a Star Trek phaser: one to stun, one to kill and one to completely disintegrate. For obvious reasons, only the ones with the best aim were allowed to use a _zat_ , as the things were nicknamed. From the Torchwood gang that meant Jack, Suzie and Andy Davidson.

Tosh was permanently in happy geek mode. She hit off with Dr. Markova at once, she had a happy reunion with a shy little Japanese woman who turned out to be Dr. Kusanagi, and she make fast friends with a short, scruffy little man with glasses and flyaway Einsteinesque hair who, as Jack would learn later, was Dr. Zelenka. Owen and Martha were gladly welcomed by Dr. Carson Beckett, the man with the sexiest accent and best blue eyes right after Ianto, and were barely seen from that day on.

Suzie and Mickey had been taken under the wings of Technical Sergeant Siler, who seemed to know almost as much about the Stargate and Ancient tech as the geeks; that pretty much took care of them for the rest of their stay. They were accompanied by a mixed bunch of technicians from all around the world and thus were in the best possible company.

Gwen, Andy and the other ex-cops – mostly Germans – chosen to make up civilian security, were given into the care of Master Sergeant Bates, also selected for the expedition, together with his Marine squad. Bates took them to scouting missions on alien worlds to make them familiar with Gate travel, drilled them in armed _and_ unarmed combat, and generally made their lives to hell. When someone (speak: Gwen) complained, the no-nonsense Master Sergeant told them that this was to save their miserable asses in situations where the cavalry would _not_ come, and made the offender drop and give him twenty push-ups on the spot. Complaints abruptly ceased from that day on – at least when Bates was within earshot.

Jack decided that he liked Master Sergeant Bates.

As for himself and Ianto, they were extremely busy, too. Beyond basic SGC training, they had to help Dr. Shaw – with whom he was on first name basis already – planning the expedition budget, which soon turned into a logistic nightmare. Fortunately, they had Ianto. Without him, they’d have been lost; because honestly, how were they to decide what one hundred and fifty people might need for a one-way trip to a foreign galaxy?

“Food supplies,” Liz Shaw counted on her fingers, while Ianto was making notes. “Power sources. Medicine; particularly antibiotics, as we have no idea what we might have to face.”

“Heavy machinery,” Ianto added. “At least one chopper, with plenty of spare parts. And one of those two-man submarines Doctor Markova had suggested. We’re speaking of _Atlantis_ – it might well be underwater.”

“ _Ammunition_ ,” Jack said with emphasis. “Lots of it. Some of those _zat_ weapons, as they don’t need their power cells to be replaced so soon.”

Liz Shaw nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, this all sounds very reasonably,” she said, “but I still have the feeling that we aren’t thinking broad enough. We’re to write a packing list for something between a post-apocalyptic survival camp and a cross-country wagon trip.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow. “We are?”

She smiled at him in her usual motherly manner. “We aren’t just providing an expedition, Mr. Jones. There’s a very good chance that we’re equipping a future colony. _And_ we have to think about the logistics very carefully. Thirty-eight minutes worth of time to transport everything we might need through the Gate. That’s the maximum of what we’ll get. Less, if the ZedPM is drained of power too quickly, halfway through the transfer. So, I want you to sit down with every member of any SG-team that has ever been stranded off-world for more than forty-eight hours and ask them _one_ question. What item – or items – would they have needed to have brought with them to keep them alive and well, if Earth had never been able to recover them.”

Ianto nodded. “Understood, ma’am. I’ll do my best.”

And Jack returned to his other tasks, relieved, because he knew that Ianto’s best would be enough.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Ianto took his instructions literally and was, as a result, barely seen in the next couple of days. At the end of their second week, he returned to Liz Shaw in the company of Dr. Eric Corrigan, a young Canadian anthropologist and linguist in his early thirties, who, it seemed, had spent several of his formative years as an archaeology help in African deserts, South-American rain forests and other less than welcoming environments. He was also a member of a continent-wide association called the Society of Applied Archaeology; people who studied – and tried out in practice – methods due which humans of early ages survived under their less than ideal circumstances.

As a result, Corrigan counted as _the_ survival expert of the SGC and was often borrowed by other team leaders to help out dealing with natives, understanding their way of life and the likes. He also seemed to have a very clear image about what would be absolutely necessary, what would be needful and what could be useful to keep the expedition alive, no matter where they would end up. If Dr. Shaw wanted someone who could think broad enough, she certainly found it in the young anthropologist.

Corrigan’s _short_ list – consisting of iron, aluminium, lead, nickel and steel ingots, tallow for candles and soap, diatomaceous earth (both to purify water and for long-term food and grain storage), vitamins, matches, activated charcoal, chlorine, iodine, salt, needles of all sorts, wool roving and spindles and only God knew what else – would have been enough to fill their tonnage at least twice. So they needed to plan very carefully and methodically. The packing lists Dr. Shaw, Ianto and their quartermaster, a middle-aged female UNIT corporal by the name of Carol Bell set up between them, distributed the supplies into several categories, starting with the most critical supplies.

“The first quarter of our supply train _must_ have all the most critical supplies,” Dr. Shaw emphasized.

Ianto nodded in agreement.

“True; but each pallet of this quarter also should hold a cross-section of such goods as would be necessary for survival and comfort,” he said. “That way, even if we lose the Gate more quickly than expected, we’d have _some_ of everything, instead of _all_ of a small collection of things.”

Corporal Bell looked at him with something akin to motherly pride.

“Young man,” she said with respect, “that’s seriously advanced tactical thinking. I’d have not expected it from a civilian.”

Ianto shrugged. “Well, ma’am, just ‘cos we don’t wear a uniform it doesn’t mean we’re all fools.”

“Carol,” she corrected gently. “I’m a hard-working woman, not an officer. Besides, I could be your mother. So don’t give me that ma’am crap.”

“Yes, Mam,” Ianto replied with a grin. Both older women laughed and with that, the tone of their working relationship was pretty much set and Ianto all but adopted by them.

Parallel to logistic considerations, Gate travel drills were running full time. Jack didn’t need more than a week to realize how lucky they had been that Master Sergeant Bates, their off-world expert, insisted on constant practicing well before the actual day of mission departure. Had people not gotten used to wormhole travel in advance, they’d have held up the line on the way, in a situation when seconds could prove crucial.

Fortunately, Bates and Captain Magambo hit off from the first day on, and so all UNIT soldiers had been made to understand that when the Master Sergeant gave an order, they were to obey without question or hesitation… unless Magambo told them otherwise. That made it a great deal easier – not to mention faster – to line up people day after day in the Gate room, taking them and already pre-packed equipment through the Gate to the Alpha site (which, it seemed was one of Earth’s off-world evacuation bases) over and over again, until seconds saved turned into minutes saved and they could have done it in their sleep, if necessary.

They could also call themselves lucky that Bates had such good connections to the military personnel within in the SGC, despite him being a Marine and most of the SGC personnel belonging to the Air Force. It was _his_ doing that they got every pair of hands available to help in the line of goods up the ramp and through the Gate. These people offered what little spare time they had to practice the moving of said goods, despite having taken offence that they had to give up the expedition to non-Americans. They did it out of respect for Bates – allegedly the only team leader who’d _never_ lost a man off-world, despite the hairy situations they’d got themselves – and Jack understood quickly how invaluable the man would be if treated properly.

Not being actively part of the military any longer, Jack was the ideal person to deal with a man like Bates. He wasn’t one obsessed with rank differences anyway, and it wasn’t hard to respect a man as capable and loyal as the Master Sergeant, even though Bates _did_ tend to be a little paranoid – something that was fairly alien for Jack, who used to confront things – and people – directly.

On the other hand, paranoia _could_ be useful at times, in healthy doses. It could save lives, by keeping people alert and observant. Ianto, for his part, declared himself relieved that there would be somebody to hold back Jack when he got reckless and ran into peril headfirst again. Especially as they weren’t planning to make the coming back from death part general knowledge just yet.

At first Jack had been a little worried that the Marines wouldn’t react well to the fact, that he and Ianto were not only together but open and official about it. At first there had indeed been queer looks, and two of the UNIT soldiers had immediately asked for reassignment. Even some of the geeks seemed a little… uncomfortable around them, although both Dr. Shaw and Dr. Markova treated them no differently than, say, Doctors McNab and Moore, a married couple of Scottish oceanologists.

Contrary to expectations, however, Bates’ team took the fact with a shrug. All of them had been either to Iraq or to Afghanistan before getting assigned to the Stargate Program, and the only thing that concerned them was whether Jack would watch their six in a fight. As soon as they felt sure about _that_ – and had seen Ianto score one perfect round after another on his firearms training – they simply accepted their marital status as they’d have accepted any other personality quirk from a commanding officer. As they’d accept the unpleasant weather they couldn’t change.

There was _one_ thing that seemed to make them wonder, though.

“Doesn’t it bother you that he flirts with everything on two legs?” Sergeant Jamie Markham, young, baby-faced and pretty, with dreamy dark eyes, asked Ianto one day in the mess hall.

Ianto shrugged and smiled. “That’s Jack for you,” he replied easily. “That’s how he connects with people – he charms them out of their pants… well, not literally in these days, but there used to be times… Anyway, yeah, he _is_ a terrible flirt… but that’s how far he would go.”

“Are you sure about that?” Markham asked doubtfully. “Cuz he seems awfully chummy with just almost everyone. Were he my…” he blushed, considering a previously alien concept that clearly made him uncomfortable, “… my _partner_ , it _would_ bother me.”

“Jack is larger than life,” Ianto replied, giving that aspect of their lives some thought, perhaps for the first time. “He can’t be cornered like other people. Besides, it all comes down to trust, doesn’t it? If I cannot trust him, then what’s the point? Trying to put him under restrictions wouldn’t help. It would only break us up.”

“If you say so,” Markham still didn’t seem convinced but let it be for the time being. 

And Ianto realized, with no small amount of surprise, that he could count on the Marines to watch his back, should he ever need it. That was… unexpected, to say the least.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The remaining weeks at the SGC seemed awfully short, considering the workload they still had before them. Jack couldn’t even remember having felt so tired since he’d stranded on Earth back in the late 19th century.

They had to make plans for every possible situation they might face upon passing the Gate to the Pegasus galaxy: from arriving in a small, closed room with little to no storage space all the way down to arriving outside on a broad open plain with plenty of storage but absolutely no traction for the pallets' wheels. They _practiced_ for each and every one of those possibilities, using friendly planets that offered similar conditions, while overseeing – and in great part doing – all the packing.

By zero hour, they'd got the transfer of people and most important goods down to seventeen minutes and fifty-one seconds at their optimal time, with the remaining time available for their voluntary helpers to throw as many not-necessary-but-useful goods through the open Gate after them as they can, until the Gate ran out of power and disengaged.

Both Captain Magambo and Master Sergeant Bates agreed that their soldiers could haul goods with them before fanning out to secure the area. Michael Naseband, the head of civilian security, agreed to have his people do the same thing.

“The ideal thing would be to find an uninhibited world that we could explore and claim and make our own,” the big, bald-headed German ex-detective said with his harsh accent, “but we must be prepared for the possibility of running into people, too; possibly even into hostile ones.”

“I’m aware of that,” Dr. Shaw replied, “which is why I put Doctor Corrigan in the first wave. Just in case we need to talk our way out of a sticky situation.”

Naseband nodded. “A good choice. That boy might be young, but he’s very level-headed. Small wonder, after all he’s already seen, I guess.”

“I hope this Doctor Lindsey is at least half as good,” Dr. Shaw sighed. “Even if she’s more of a theoretician.”

“She’ll have to learn the practical skills as she goes,” Naseband said soberly. “We all have to. Otherwise…” 

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. They both knew what the alternative was.

“All right,” Dr. Shaw said with another tired sigh. “Let’s get back to the drill. I’ll be happy when this phase is over and we can finally begin our real work in the Pegasus galaxy… unless I die from exhaustion before the actual departure.”

Naseband gave her an inquisitive look and realized for the first time how tired she truly was. 

“Perhaps you should skip the next drill and rest a little instead,” he suggested. “I’m sure the others will understand.”

But the old lady shook her head determinedly. “No, no, I _need_ the practice. I can’t be the one holding up the line.”

“You definitely _will_ be holding up the line if you collapse right in front of the open Gate,” Jack intervened, walking up to them. “Mr. Naseband is right. You need to rest. And _I need_ your signature on a dozen or so documents. So why don’t we go back to your office, have Ianto make us some industrial strength coffee and discuss the problems of taking some additional equipment with us?”

“Additional equipment?” Liz Shaw stared at him, bewildered. “Jack, we’re beyond the original limits of our tonnage already.”

“I know,” Jack replied amiably. ‘That’s why we need to discuss it. Cos I think we really need to take those things with us.”

“What kind of things are we talking about?” Liz Shaw asked suspiciously.

“Torchwood-issue things,” Jack answered with an I’m-too-cute-to-be-yelled-at expression on his face that made him look about fourteen. “Small things we… well, _liberated_ before closing down the Hub. Things that can prove _very_ useful.”

“I see,” Liz said slowly. “You’re right, _Captain_. We _do_ need to talk about this.”

That didn’t sound very promising, but Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to smuggle all those pilfered Torchwood items through the controls. He followed his boss to Liz’ temporary office, hoping for the best.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
“All right,” Dr. Shaw said, closing the door behind them. “I want a complete list of those items you were talking about, and I want it _now_. Unless you wish yourself and your team arrested and sent to the next best UNIT prison. If you think you can play me, _Captain_ , you are mistaken.”

“Here you are, ma’am,” Ianto materialized seemingly out of thin air, placing a mug of coffee before each of them and a printed list of said items next to Dr. Shaw’s coffee. “It isn’t such a long list, really. Barely a dozen items, all very useful… and none that would be missed back home.”

“I’ll be the judge of _that_ ,” she replied, snatching the list to check out the individual items on it. “For starters you can tell me what this anti-Droon audio paddle is. For that matter, what is a Droon?”

“Droon are a species of small, black parasitic insects the size of a cockroach, with sharp, barbed limbs,” Ianto explained matter-of-factly. “A migratory species, occasionally coming to Earth via the Cardiff Rift. When they arrive, they seek out somewhere warm and moist to hide in, generally people’s noses. As many as six can be found in one person. They’re generally harmless at this stage, causing a state akin to the common cold. Most of them leave or die in a few months, but about ten per cent of them usually pupate and advance to their next stage.”

“Which is not good for the host, I assume,” she said.

“Not really,” Ianto replied. “At this point they emit alpha-wave patterns, which – if they aren’t removed before they finish developing – would cause harm to the host. Fortunately, at this stage they’re vulnerable to infrasonic waves, which this device,” he pointed at the picture of a black, spoon-like object inserted into the list, “emits, thus damaging them before they could hatch. It’s harmless for the host, as it only causes temporary disorientation.”

“And you’re sure it works?” Dr. Shaw asked doubtfully.

Ianto nodded. “I know that for a fact. There have been seven documented cases of successful removal by Torchwood Three since 2000 – three of them during the last year. I’ve witnessed Doctor Harper perform the act twice.”

“But do you truly expect to find these Droon creatures in the Pegasus galaxy?” Dr. Shaw asked.

“No, we don’t,” Jack admitted. “At least I _hope_ we won’t; they’re nasty little buggers. But Owen says the paddle should work with other sorts of parasites, too, and who knows what creatures we are gonna face there? It’s not that we’d be able to ask Earth for help… not likely.”

“That’s true,” she admitted. ”All right, at the odd chance that it might be helpful… How big is it anyway?”

Jack grinned. “Small enough for Owen to carry it in his standard antitoxin kit. It’s a handheld device, approximately of the size of a spoon. Besides, it’s only fair. He’s the one who wants to take it.”

“Then he can have it,” she looked at the list again. “Now, this… this Bekaran deep-tissue scanner. Is this something like MR or X-ray?”

For a moment Jack stared at her in surprise; then he remembered that she had a degree in medicine, too. Plus, during her decades working for UNIT _and_ the Preternatural Research Bureau, she’d had enough chance to study alien technology.

“As a matter of fact, it’s better,” Ianto intervened smoothly. “While only the size of a pocket calculator, it allows the user to see internal organs without surgery, with much greater accuracy and definition than either an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner It is capable of producing a photo-realistic images on its screen that can be viewed at any depth by adjusting the resolution and can be hooked up to whatever wireless network someone uses.”

“Sounds handy,” Dr. Shaw studied the picture on the list with interest. “What about the power source?”

“It has a rechargeable core battery,” Ianto explained, “compatible with the usual power sources of our technology. We’ve got four of these things; Tosh happened to buy one on e-Bay from a clueless owner. They could serve well as back-up tools, especially as we can only take a limited amount of the standard medical equipment because of their size and weight.”

“You don’t need to tell me _that_ ,” she replied dryly. The fact that even the most advanced medical technology tended to be large and heavy and therefore they could only take the barest minimum with them had concerned her from the very beginning. “Can any trained doctor use them?”

“Certainly,” Ianto said. “It has no harmful effects whatsoever. One has to be careful with it, though; it’s rather sensitive.”

“I’ll assign that young Indian doctor to keep an eye on them,” Dr. Shaw said. “Dr. Patanjali, or whatever his name is. Interns ought to learn the tough aspects of the job, too.”

They laughed and she ticked off the item on the list.

“Now, this is one I’ve heard about already,” she then said, looking at the picture of the singularity scalpel. “This is the gadget that allows you to operate without opening the patient, isn’t it? The one Doctor Harper saved Doctor Jones’ life with, right?”

“Jack nodded. “The very same. “Unfortunately, we haven’t figured out yet what kind of power source it uses and how long it will last, but…” he shrugged.

“But as long as it lasts, it _will_ be invaluable,” Liz Shaw agreed. “I’ll instruct Doctor Beckett to only use it in the direst emergencies. We’ll take it. One of the med-techs can carry it; it’s fairly small, after all.”

Ianto studied the master pack list. “According to this, Rick Wong would be the one with the least medical equipment to carry. He can take the laser torch as well when he’s already at it.”

“What laser torch?” she asked. Ianto produced the instrument in question from his pocket.

“This one. It can not only open up flesh with a laser with virtually no mess, it can also reattach it with no visible signs afterwards.”

“You had a great deal of useful medical tools at Torchwood Three,” she commented. Jack shrugged.

“Well, yeah, we only ever had _one_ medic, so he needed to be versatile… and well equipped for the job. Owen dubbed both as our exobiologist and pathologist, aside from patching us up after a fight; and he’s very good at all this.”

“I know,” she replied. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be here. Now, do you have more medical tools on this list?”

Jack shook his head. “Afraid not. The rest is scanning equipment or weaponry.”

“I see,” she said, a little more uncomfortable with the thought than with the idea of taking alien tools she hadn’t seen working yet. “What’s this Eye-5, for starters?”

“Oh, that’s a very cool thing,” Jack grinned. “A pair of special contact lenses that can be used to record the things the wearer sees. They look and function just like normal contact lenses, but they can transmit information wirelessly back to a computer network. A person at the other end then can communicate with the lens via a keyboard.”

“Impressive,” Dr. Shaw said. “Can they transmit sound, too?”

“Unfortunately, not,” Jack replied. “But it has lip-reading software that transcribes lip movements to speech after a short delay of a second or two.”

“Of course, it helps if the wearer faces the person who’s speaking directly,” Ianto added. “Otherwise, the results can be… interesting.”

Jack ignored his comment. “Information transmitted from the lens can get recorded like conventional video,” he explained. “As far as we can tell, it also can’t be traced back to the surveillance team.”

“Sounds practical,” Dr. Shaw allowed. “Well, I guess it can’t hurt to take them with us. How many of these things do you have?”

“Four pairs only, alas,” Ianto answered. “We can either give one pair to each of the future survey teams, or send them all with the one team out scouting the area. Toshiko offered to take them, as they’re already hooked up to her special laptop.”

“Good, let her have them,” Dr. Shaw said. “Any more such handy tools?”

“Well, there would be this data scanner,” Ianto pointed at the next item on the list. “It’s a device that can be used to store text and other data in the form of photographic images. By merely waving it at printed text and images, it can store them as information inside itself or translate the data to a computer. Toshiko calls it an iPod for books. She speculates that perhaps alien archaeologists used it to record ancient writings, which in our case would be very useful, as it’s also capable of translating foreign languages.”

Dr. Shaw studied the technical data in amazement. “The data storage capacity of this thing is incredible,” she said, impressed. “Should we manage to reverse-engineer it, we could carry entire libraries in our pockets.”

“It can also be used to pick locks,” Ianto told her.

She frowned. “What? How is that possible?”

“We haven’t got a clue,” Ianto admitted, “but Toshiko has managed to do it at least once that I know of.”

“Hmmm,” she thought about it, her scientific interest definitely piqued. “Perhaps it has something to do with the sheer unlimited data storage capacity. I’ll give the project to Peter Grodin. I’m sure he’ll love it. Toshiko and Doctor Kusanagi can work with him on it. Having more of these things would be extremely practical,” she ticked off the data scanning device on the list. “Now, what the heck is this quantum transducer?”

“Now that,” Jack said thoughtfully, “is a very strange thing. It allows the user some kind of mental time travel, by converting the quantum traces of emotional events, both past and future, into a form that humans can experience, using nanotechnology. I’ve come to believe that it worked as a navigational device for travellers across the dimensions who use quantum traces to orient the flight of their craft.”

“But he could be wrong, of course,” Ianto added, earning a dark look from his husband.

“Which is why we call it a quantum transducer,” Jack continued, ignoring his remark.

“Or simply the Ghost Machine,” Ianto interjected. “When activated, by touching the buttons on the front, the user is shown an emotional event from the past of future. Aside from the actual event, though, it also transmits the thoughts of the people involved in the action.”

“You mean it really can show the future?” Liz Shaw asked doubtfully.

“Only possible futures,” Jack corrected, “that might or might not come to pass.”

“However, so far all the visions the machine had relayed did come true,” Ianto added.

“And in what way could _that_ help us?” Liz Shaw asked skeptically. “I can figure out a dozen possible futures all on my own; and besides, knowing what might happen would only slow people down or freeze them in a fatal moment when a split-second decision could decide between life and death. I don’t think we should take this thing with us, Jack.”

“Perhaps not the whole thing,” Jack allowed. “Just the half that shows us past events. Arriving somewhere in an abandoned settlement or an old battlefield always raises questions. This instrument could answer those questions and show us whether it’s worth to watch the place or not.”

“Perhaps,” she said reluctantly. “But I want the other module destroyed, before my very eyes. _And_ I want the rest to be kept in one of those containment boxes you used in the Hub. Only a selected few people will be allowed access to it. I’ll consult Doctors Druvasula and Heightmeyer and choose the people they deem mentally stable enough to play with such a dangerous toy. _Then_ I’ll study the files of those people and select the most reliable ones; one for each team.”

She held out her hand, and after a moment of hesitation, Jack disconnected the “ghost machine” and dropped the module declared acceptable into her palm. He hated the idea of having to give it up, but he had to admit that she did have a point.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now, how do you intend to destroy the rest of it?”

“What about demonstrating the effects of the Jamolean lance, Jack?” Ianto suggested. Turning to their boss, he added as an explanation. “It’s a type of energy weapon… more like a gun than a lance, actually, save for its shape. It can produce an exothermic reaction that increases the temperature to fatal levels. Of course, it’s possible that it only works on organic material. We haven’t tested it on lifeless objects yet.”

“I’d very much like to see the test,” Liz Shaw said. “But why would you wish to take a weapon like that? We’ve packed more than enough weapons already; both traditional ones and a few _zat_ guns. Not to mention the _naquadah_ warheads I’ve managed to get from the SGC… and believe me, _that_ wasn’t an easy feat!”

“I can imagine that,” Jack said. “In any case, the advantage of a Jamolean lance is that it can’t be immediately recognized as a weapon, unlike standard guns. Not by technically advanced people anyway. That may prove to be and advantage.”

“Plus, it has a rechargeable power cell, so it doesn’t need ammunition,” Ianto added, practical-minded as always.

“The only disadvantage is that it runs out of power after half a dozen shots or so, unlike our big gun,” Jack said, pointing at the picture that showed the individual elements of the Torchwood-issue build-up gun. “Now, _this_ is a nasty piece of work. One shot’s enough to cause spontaneous combustion by all organic targets, and it has quite a few shots in it, which is the reason why we keep it in several parts, stored inside individual boxes.”

“A wise precaution,” Dr. Shaw said. “You only have this one?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Jack replied. “We might have been able to build more, but Torchwood Three simply didn’t have the resources to do it – and we didn’t want others to get their hands on the design. That could have proven… dangerous.”

“Quite so,” Liz Shaw agreed. “Right now, we could use a few more of those, though.”

“Well we still have our stun guns,” Jack pointed out. “They’re a bit like those _zat_ weapons, but with only two settings: stun and kill. And they work with batteries, which is a disadvantage.”

“At least the batteries are rechargeable,” Ianto reminded him. “People just ought to check if they’re fully charged before going on a mission.”

“ _Zat_ weapons are still better,” Jack said.

“They are,” Ianto agreed, “But we only got six of them. With our six stun guns as backup, we can provide energy weapons for an entire survey team. Not all creatures are vulnerable to projectile weapons, as you know.”

“Believe me, I do know,” Jack said grimly. “I wish the Doctor hadn’t snapped my sonic blaster when I used to travel with him. I’d feel much better if I still had it.”

“Yes, but the Doctor always suffered from the delusion of knowing everything better,” Liz Shaw replied tartly. “All right, boys, the weapons have a go. What else do you have on your list? What’s this inflatable cell?”

“Just what the name says,” Jack answered. “It’s basically a portable prison cell of probably Chulan origins. When thrown on the ground, it generates a force field around the prisoner.”

“Now _this_ is an excellent little thing,” Liz said, impressed.

“Unfortunately, the battery runs out after an hour,” Ianto pointed out.

“Can it be recharged?” she asked.

“No need for that,” Ianto replied. “It recharges itself. But timing is important when one uses it.”

“Like with so many other things,” she said. “Very well, then. We’ll take all the stuff you’ve listed here – they all appear useful, even though I still have my doubts about that quantum transducer. But Jack… you should have come to me with this list a lot earlier.”

“I wanted to,” Jack admitted, “but I, too, had my doubts. No offence, Liz, but I don’t know you well enough yet… and I’m having my doubts about UNIT: More so as time goes by. I’m sorry.”

“I do have my doubts about UNIT politics sometimes, too,” she replied seriously. “I always had. But Jack, this isn’t about UNIT. This is about the safety of a hundred and fifty people for whom we bear the responsibility; you and me before everyone else. If this is supposed to work, we shouldn’t keep things from each other.”

Jack had the decency to at least _look_ contrite. “You’re right, Liz. Again, I’m very sorry.”

She smiled at him. For a woman of her age, she had a surprisingly cheeky smile. “Apology accepted. Now, let’s get back to our tasks. The day isn’t getting any younger... and neither am I. I’ll meet you after supper to see if the Jamolean lance works on the transducer.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
“Sir,” Ianto said on their way to the Gate room to join the drill currently running; the addressing signalized that he wanted to ask something official, as he didn’t call Jack _sir_ anymore. “Are you really willing to destroy the other module of the Ghost Machine?”

Jack gave him an unreadable look. “What do _you_ think?”

“I think,” Ianto replied slowly, “that destroying one half might render the transducer completely useless. Even though they’re not physically connected.”

“Then you have your answer,” Jack said flatly.

“Ianto nodded. “That’s the answer I’ve feared, _sir_ ,” he replied.


	5. Interlude - The Big Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different. Gwen’s good-bye message has been written by the wonderful artemis10002000, without whom the Torchwoodgate AU probably wouldn't have been born.

**INTERLUDE – THE BIG GOODBYE**

It was fairly late when Rhys Williams came home on this particular day. Truth was, he’d come home fairly late ever since Gwen had left for the States with her entire team, putting off their wedding again, for some nebulous top secret mission.

Not that _that_ would have been something new. He’d taken a lot of shit from Gwen lately… more than usual, that is.

To think of it, he’d gotten nothing _but_ shit from her since Gwen had left the police to join Torchwood. She’d always come home very late, she’d left at the oddest times due to some phone call, dishing him up some harebrained story on the next day.

He knew she’d lied to him, many times. She’d always done that, since high school. Not out of malevolence – she just found it easier to lie than to face uncomfortable things. It was her way to escape the unpleasantness of real life. He could swear that she actually _believed_ her own lies.

She wasn’t a bad girl, not really. She’d just somehow failed to grow up, to take responsibility for her own actions. To _think_ before she’d blunder headfirst into something that wasn’t her bloody business to begin with. She never meant any harm. She just believed she knew better what would be good for people and never bothered to ask whether they wanted her so-called _help_ or not.

 _And_ she fled in panic when everything went straight to hell, as it could have been expected.

She couldn’t deal with responsibility, so Rhys, quietly but firmly, had long taken over that part for her. He smoothed the waves caused by her actions, picked up the pieces afterwards, apologized to people. He did the housework without complaining, cos she couldn’t cook the simplest meal if her life depended on it; hell, she couldn’t even be bothered to separate the washing properly! He didn’t even mind when she was condescending, sometimes even rude to him. She was his little princess, and he enjoyed taking care of her needs.

It made him feel _needed_. Loved even.

Needless to say that Daff and his other mates saw things a little differently. They called Gwen a selfish, spoiled bitch, and Banana Boat swore that he’d seen her coming out of that fancy penthouse where one of her team-mates, that rat-faced doctor lived. _At night_.

Of course, Banana Boat’s habitually drunken state after nine o’clock didn’t make him a very reliable witness. Still, Rhys couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that Gwen was, in fact, cheating on him. He’s originally suspected that Jack Harkness character – Gwen always got doe-eyed when mentioning him – but perhaps just this one time Banana Boat was right and he was wrong.

He started the washing machine, checked the answering machine – not that Gwen would have called for _days_ by now, but one could always hope, right? – re-heated the rest of yesterday’s takeout in the microwave and was just about to sit down in front of the telly and watch _Wife Swap_ when the doorbell rang. That surprised him a little, as he didn’t have any previous arrangement with his mates for the evening. Who could it be then, this late?

For a moment wild hope started budding in his heart that Gwen might have changed her mind about that shadowy mission in the States and returned to him… Then reality hit home rather ungently. He knew how likely _that_ would be. Like… not at all. But who the hell would bother him this time?

Well, he could as well check out. Opening the door, he unexpectedly stood face to face with a uniformed young man wearing a strange red cap and the rank insignia of a corporal. Some sort of a soldier, then, which was odd. He’d never had anything to do with the armed forces… and this one sure as hell wasn’t a regular grunt.

“Mr. Williams?” the young man asked. “Rhys Williams?”

Rhys nodded, completely flabbergasted. “Yeah, that I am, but what…”

“Then I’ve got a delivery for you, sir,” all business-like, the corporal handed him a small, flat parcel of the size of a paperback novel. Then he produced a clipboard with a fairly average-looking delivery form pinned to it. “If you’d sign here, please…”

Somewhat stunned, Rhys scribbled down his name on the dotted line. The soldier thanked him, saluted – _saluted_! – and left without explanation. Rhys closed his mouth that he only now realized had been hanging open, returned to the living room and turned the small parcel back and forth in suspicion, as if he’d be afraid it might explode in his very hands.

It revealed nothing by it mere looks. His name and address were _not_ hand-written, and where the sender should have been named, there was just a symbol he’d never seen before and the word UNIT: He’d never heard about _that_ before, either, but he’d bet next month’s salary that it _had_ something to do with bloody Torchwood. The bane of his existence.

Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep unless he checked out the mysterious parcel, Rhys tore the cardboard box open. Within, he found a CD, labelled “Gwen Cooper”, with a code number that didn’t tell him a thing. Nothing else.

Bloody hell, had the woman got herself kidnapped and was this a ransom note or whatnot?

With shaking hands, Rhys slammed the CD into the player and could feel perspiration tickling down his spine already. Somehow he knew there wouldn’t be any good news.

The CD started, showing a nondescript room – and Gwen, wearing some sort of uniform and that sly, gap-toothed smile he’d fallen in love with at first sight, back in high school. The other boys couldn’t understand what he’d see in her. But for him, she’d always been the only one.

Even though, deep in his heart, he knew the feeling wasn’t exactly mutual.

She _liked_ him. She _needed_ him to get through the pitfalls of life unharmed. He _hoped_ that she loved him as well, but he could never be entirely sure about that. And _that_ broke his heart every time he thought about it.

The Gwen on the TV screen smiled again, that nervous, uncertain little smile that had always been the surest sign that she wasn’t telling the truth. Or not the _whole truth_ anyway. By now Rhys was so used to it that it didn’t even register with him on a conscious level. He’d long ago learned to accept it as part of who Gwen was.

“Hi Rhys,” she began with that not-quite-honest smile on her face. “How do you do? I hope you aren’t mourning for me anymore and will find yourself a nice new girlfriend, soon. You must believe me, I hate breaking up with you like this, after all those years together, but trust me, it’s for the best. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this assignment, knowing that you’re sitting in Cardiff waiting for my return and missing me. We’re still so young; we shouldn’t waste our life with waiting.”

Rhys stopped the recording, not quite able to trust his ears. She was breaking up with him? She was bloody _breaking up_ with him, in a _video message_ , while there was an ocean between them? While he didn’t even have a phone number to call her and ask her _why_? Ask her if the years they’d spent together didn’t mean a thing?

The player’s counter showed that he’d only seen half the message so far. He was sorely tempted not to watch the rest, cos seriously, what was the woman _thinking_? Just cos he loved her and put up with her shit all the time, it didn’t mean there wasn’t a limit!

But then curiosity won the upper hand and he continued the recording, listening to Gwen babble on about her great new assignment excitedly.

“I _love_ being out here!” she enthused. Wherever _here_ was supposed to be. “I miss you, of course, and Cardiff, and our friends…”

 _What friends_ , Rhys muttered darkly, cos in truth, Daff, Banana Boat and all the others were actually _his_ mates who’d learned to tolerate Gwen for his sake… barely.

“But you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen here…” she went on. “It’s even more exciting than working for Torchwood!”

 _God beware_ , Rhys thought. All that excitement with Torchwood had nearly killed her several times. Why did she always need to be where she had no business to be? Why couldn’t she accept a nice, safe job and have a nice, safe life with him?

“They really need some capable policemen out here,” she added, her smile turning more honest, more self-gratulating by that. “And my experience with Torchwood is a great help. It’s dangerous, of course…”

 _Of course_ , Rhys muttered sarcastically.

“… only the best of the best got this chance, and the job takes up all my time. But if I don’t have anyone waiting for me at home, I won’t have to feel guilty about working late or worry about leaving my work unfinished. Concentrating only on my job is doing wonders for my career.”

 _Career_? What sort of career was she _speaking_ about? Everyone in Cardiff knew that Torchwood had been closed down and its facilities taken over by the military. What kind of shadowy business was she being involved in _now_?”

She looked at him beseechingly from the screen, eyes impossibly wide and welling with tears, her lower lip trembling, like always when she tried to make him do her bidding.

“I hope you’re having a good life, Rhys,” she finished with a tremulous smile through actual _tears_. God, she was such an actress! “You’ll always be a good friend.”

“No, I bloody won’t!” Rhys yelled, grabbing the next available object – which happened to be a heavy glass ashtray – and hurling it at the telly. “You selfish bitch! Who gave you the right to do this to me?”

The impact, unsurprisingly, caused the brand new telly to explode. It was still in flames when the fire-fighters arrived, alarmed by the automated fire alarm that, fortunately, had kicked in on time. 

The furniture in the living room was still smoking when Daff arrived with Karen to take a sobbing Rhys home with them. 

The whole flat was still dripping wet when Karen haphazardly stuffed all clothes of Rhys she could find – and that weren’t soaked already – into a suitcase and Daff cajoled Rhys into collecting the documents he’d need at work for the next couple of days.

“He’ll stay with us until we find something else for him,” Daff handed the police officer leading the investigation his business card. “I don’t think he’d wish to come back here. I know _I wouldn’t_ if I was him.”

“She left me, Daff,” Rhys’ tears were still running free. “She just… she just wiped me from her life, like some… like some inconvenience. She left me and went away with that fancy boss of hers, after all this time…”

“He burned down his flat because his girlfriend left him?” the police officer shook his head in bewilderment. “No woman is worth _that_.”

“Not for you, perhaps,” Daff shrugged. “He sees it differently. They were together since high school, you know. They were even supposed to get married, soon.”

“And she left him without warning?” the officer asked. “Man, that’s cold.”

“We all knew it was only a matter of time,” Daff answered dryly. “We all knew… except of Rhys himself, that is,” he patted the grieving man’s back. “Rhys, mate, come with us now. We’re gonna take care of you. Everything’s gonna be all right… eventually.”

But deep in his heart he knew it would take Rhys _years_ to get over Gwen Cooper and what she’d done to him. If ever.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
A couple of days later the police closed the investigation, deciding that the fire had been caused by accident, not by arson. Rhys’ insurance paid for the reconstruction of the flat, but – just as Daff had foretold – he never returned there. Instead, he moved back to his old neighbourhood, on the other end of Cardiff.

When a week later another soldier wearing one of those funny red caps visited him – this time an older, female one – and offered something she called an _amnesia pill_ , promising to replace his memory of Gwen’s “Dear John” message with one about them having broken up in mutual agreement, he accepted gladly.

Life was too short to live in the past. And he’d already wasted more than enough of it on a selfish bitch like Gwen. He didn’t want to forget their years together – he _had_ been happy in those years, to the bewilderment of his mates – but he didn’t want to suffer because of her any longer.

He’d finally come to realize that she wasn’t worth it.


	6. Submerged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 05 - SUBMERGED**

Seven weeks and four days after his arrival to Colorado Springs Jack Harkness was standing in the Gate room, deep below Cheyenne Mountain – a comparatively small room dominated by the massive Stargate. It was also filled with people, all sorts of people, like some kind of foreign market, chatting away in at least twenty different languages. He recognized French, German, Japanese, Hindi and Russian and was reasonably certain that the curses coming from Dr. Zelenka’s mouth had to be Czech.

Even Ianto was murmuring something under his breath in Welsh. Something that sounded surprisingly like poetry but was too low-voiced for him to understand.

Not that he’d need to understand. The _sentiment_ behind those beautiful Welsh vowels was palpable, and it was mirrored by everyone present, bouncing off the walls and melting with the constant, multilingual chatter of the people waiting for _the_ big moment. Jack, too, found his heart beating a little faster, the expectation pumping adrenaline freely through his system. He hadn’t been this excited since entering the TARDIS for the first time.

 _This is life_ , he thought, seeking out the rest of the team to check out how they were doing. _This is what life is supposed to be: excitement, adventure, discoveries – not sitting in the Hub and chasing Weevils_.

And indeed, his team seemed to be doing just fine. He saw Tosh chatting with Dr. Kusanagi, their porcelain doll-like faces rosy with excitement. He saw Suzie, standing between Mickey and that Hindu scientists, Dr. Suresh: a tall, dark-skinned fellow with wavy, ink-black hair that reached his collar, beautiful like some ancient bronze statue. But Suzie wasn’t watching him. She was watching the Gate, her eyes shining, and there was a sense of wonder on her face Jack couldn’t remember to have ever seen before. Perhaps there was still hope for Suzie.

Gwen was standing with Andy among the other security people, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and perhaps just a little bit frightened. Perhaps the reality that this might be her last hour on Earth _had_ finally hit home. Andy seemed nervous, too, but in a good way. He clearly wanted nothing more than to get going.

Martha and Owen stood with the people assigned to the first wave. Owen seemed full of expectation. Martha was talking soothingly to their boss, who – as Jack had already learned – hated Gate travel and was deadly afraid of it. Still, that wouldn’t keep Dr. Carson Beckett from doing what he considered the right thing to do.

Master Sergeant Bates and his men had been assigned to the first wave, too, and Jack found that fact reassuring. Not that the UNIT soldiers wouldn’t know their jobs; or that he wouldn’t trust Captains Magambo and Price. He did trust them – within reasonable limitations, that is. But the SGC Marines had been doing this particular job for _years_. Sometimes you just couldn’t beat experience.

Jack drifted over to Bates – he was supposed to pass the Gate among the first ones as well –, adjusting his backpack on his way. It was well beyond the standard field pack weight, but at least he wouldn’t have to wear it long.

“Everything in proper order, Sergeant?” he asked.

“It is on _my_ end, sir,” Bates, who seemed to be wearing a backpack twice the size of Jack’s, replied laconically. “We’re just waiting for the geeks to do their thing.”

Clearly, he was used to situations like this.

“They need to be very careful with adjusting the ZedPM,” Ianto, who’d followed Jack, said placatingly. “According to Doctor Markova, the eight chevron address is what tells the Stargate to look for a point in space _outside_ our galaxy. They won’t know if it works… until it locks.”

“You mean it can happen that the Gate simply won’t connect?” Bates asked with a frown.

“That’s extremely unlikely, but in theory… yes, it _is_ possible,” Ianto replied.

Jack found that thought a disturbing one. All that work, all that training, all those sacrifices – and it might have been for nothing? He hoped it wouldn’t happen. In a sudden burst of enlightenment he realized that he was actually looking forward to be in outer space again. To see a foreign galaxy. To behold the endless wonders of a universe that stretched into infinity in all dimensions before his very eyes.

Perhaps he’d stayed on Earth for too long.

At this moment, Dr. Shaw entered the Gate room. She looked tiny, old and fragile in her standard-issue Atlantis uniform, compared with the hulking machinery around them and the hulking forms of General O’Neill and Captain Magambo flanking her. She didn’t look apprehensive, though, and _that_ impressed the hell out of Jack. For a civilian – and an elderly one – she sure had a strong presence.

On the other hand, she’d had to stand up to an exiled, disgruntled Doctor in her youth, so it probably wasn’t all that surprising.

“Can I have everyone’s attention?” she asked, barely raising her voice, and yet quelling the bustling room instantly. Even those in the corridors fell silent, crowding close to hear what she had to say.

 _Charisma_ , Jack decided. She definitely had charisma – lots of it.

She also reminded him of Estelle; how she’d been so enthusiastic about things close to her heart… It was a bittersweet memory.

“We are about to try a connection,” she continued, and the buzz following those words ricocheted around the room, raising expectations in everyone. “As you all know, we haven’t been able to predict exactly how much power this is going to take, and we may only get _one_ chance. Most of the power expenditure is in the initial connection, so if we achieve a stable wormhole, we won’t risk shutting the Gate down. We’re sending through a MALP robot probe, check for viability and go. Everything in one shot, and as fast as we can move the equipment. As we’ve practiced over and over again in the last weeks.”

She paused and looked at the members of her groundbreaking expedition with motherly pride. Or grandmotherly pride, given the age of some of the expedition members – _not_ counting the children, who were clutching the hand of their parents, wide-eyed and shiny-faced.

“You represent over a dozen countries – the world’s best and brightest,” she carried on. “In light of the adventure we are about to embark, you are also the bravest.”

Yep, there was genuine warmth and pride in her voice, and Jack, who’d asked himself earlier why UNIT would select someone of her advanced age for this dangerous, possibly one-way mission, suddenly understood the reason. She was good. She could give the younger people a sense of safety and purpose; something they’d desperately need in a foreign, potentially hostile environment. Oh, she was really good at this!

“I hope that we shall all return one day, having discovered a whole new realm for mankind to explore, and that we shall learn things we previously thought unimaginable,” she continued, now all the devoted scientist who’d worked with aliens – well, with _one_ significant alien – as soon as she’d graduated from university. “But as you all know, we may never be able to return home.”

She paused again. Absolute silence filled the short pause. She hadn’t said anything they wouldn’t already know, but hearing it spoken aloud, just when the greatest adventure of the decade was about to begin… it was sobering. She looked at the closest faces with gentle understanding.

“Think about it one last time,” she added. “I'd like to give you all this last chance to change your minds. No-one would think any less about you, should you find that the price is too high, after all.”

No one moved, not even the families with the small children, and in that frozen moment Jack almost physically felt General O’Neill’s eyes on him. He knew the general didn’t really like his flirtatious manner, even though he’d never said anything. Perhaps O’Neill expected him to chicken out in the last moment? Well, he could wait for eternity for _that_. Quite literally, given Jack’s life expectation.

Dr. Shaw looked around one last time, smiled with pride, and then looked up to Sergeant Harriman, the chief Gate technician sitting behind a glass wall.

“Begin the dialling sequence,” she said simply.

A clunk reverberated through the floor, through Jack’s boots and into his chest, as the Gate started to spin. The speed and power of it was awesome, and despite all the horrors and wonders of the universe he had seen, with or without the Doctor, he had to struggle not to take a step back. No matter how many times he’d already seen it, it was still awe-inspiring.

It was also overwhelming as he watched each chevron lock into place, because he had to realize that this was it. This was the moment that would determine the rest of their lives – even his own, for a very long time. At least he could share with Ianto, with the rest of his team this much… which was more than he’d have expected just half a year ago.

It took longer, this time, for the wormhole to explode, as they had to dial _eight_ chevrons. The tension in the room grew palpable as Chevron Seven was encoded. This was it. _This_ was the moment of truth. Soon, they’d see whether their long preparations would be worth the results…

The Stargate stopped spinning. The Gate room fell silent, every single breath was held. No-one even dared to _blink_. The chevron clamped down on the symbol for Earth, the Gate rumbled, and then… then the middle of the great ring turned liquid blue, the event horizon mushroomed out into the empty space in the middle of the room… then withdrew, settling peacefully in place.

“Chevron _Eight_ is locked!” the jubilant voice of Harriman filled the silence.

Jack felt his heart thumping in the back of his throat. Mankind had actually done it! The gateway to a new galaxy had been opened.

He’d never been so proud of belonging to his century, to these people before.

“Send the MALP,” Dr. Shaw ordered, and they all watched as the versatile little machine trundled up the ramp and disappeared into the shimmering light in the middle of the Gate. Then it was gone, and for a minute, everyone in the room held their breath.

It seemed to take longer than usual till telemetry came in. Way too long, in fact. To fail now when they were so close… If the MALP just disappeared, without a trace, if all the wonders of a foreign galaxy remained locked… Jack already felt severe disappointment

“Shouldn’t it be there by now?” he murmured impatiently.

“It’s got a long way to go,” Toshiko, standing between him and Ianto, pointed out. “Don’t worry just yet. I’m sure we’ll have telemetry in a moment.”

And indeed, as if answering to her remark, the voice of Harriman announced through the radio. “We have MALP telemetry!”

“Switching to infrared,” the voice of Markova answered, her accent thickening, but that was the only sign of her excitement. Then, a moment later. “Radar indicates a large room; structurally intact. Environmental sensors say there’s breathable air. No measurable toxins, viable life support,” she paused again, then she raised her voice just a little. “Based on these readings it looks like plan four would be the best.”

Liz Shaw nodded her understanding, then she looked up at the glass wall behind which General O’Neill was standing. O’Neill gave her the sign of approval and then leaned over the microphone in front of him. “Doctor Shaw, you’re go for departure. And good luck. Don’t forget to send a card when you’ve arrived.”

For a moment, Liz Shaw seemed frozen. It took a second for it to sink in for her, Jack could see it clearly. Then she shouldered her pack with the help of the ever-present Corporal Bell and reached out to push the pallet she'd been assigned. 

“Entrance plan four, people, and _move_ ,” she ordered.

Captain Magambo strode forth and grabbed her own pallet. “Let’s go, people,” she barked. “We don’t know how much power we’ve got. Sergeant Bates’ security team’s up first. All other personnel will follow immediately, according to Plan Four, as we’ve practiced. Once on the other side, keep _moving_ and clear the debarkation area. Go-go-go-go-go-go!”

With half an ear, Jack heard Ianto turn to the person behind him in the line – a baby-faced UNIT soldier by the name of Jenkins or something like that – and repeat, “Plan Four, and we are clear.”

This close to the front of the line, Jenkins had heard Magambo, of course. But the departure line stretched all the way back to the elevators, and although each person waiting had headset communicators (the best state-of-the-art technology Torchwood and UNIT could provide, which was light years ahead of the parts used by any other organisation), they gave the word in the old-fashioned way, too, just to be sure.

They'd practiced this so many times that Jack asked without thinking. He grabbed the pallet he was assigned – according to the symbols on the container, it was food – and gave it enough of a shove to get it moving. Up the ramp, through the wormhole… and now he was positive that it took longer this time; he knew he wasn’t imagining _that_ , they were going to another _galaxy_ , after all… and landed in ink-black darkness on the other side of the wormhole.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
He moved to the left the minute he was clear and shoved the pallet as far as it would go, and get the hell out of the way for the person behind him. He was moving so much on autopilot that for a moment he didn’t even realize that the person would be Ianto. His… his _husband_ of almost eight weeks by now.

“Bugger,” he could hear Ianto’s voice in the blackness, those beautiful Welsh vowels giving him a sense of _home_ , no matter where they might be,” It’s bloody dark in here.”

As if answering him, some unseen light source brightened to a soft glow, and now they could see the true dimensions of the area they were in. It was _huge_ – and it was also beautiful, with a high, arched ceiling like that of a medieval cathedral, an even floor, flat steps leading up to a second, loft-like level on the other side of the room, to the balconies that, too, arched, as if this were a palace of some sort. Jack wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t _this_.

Not this beauty. Not this timeless elegance that made one’s soul soar with happiness and excitement.

“Up the steps as you’re clear!” Magambo yelled somewhere behind him. “Security teams, fan out! Make room for the others! Go-go-go-go-go-go!”

 _She’d make an excellent drill sergeant_ , Jack thought, pushing his pallet out of the way and moved up the steps obediently, with Ianto in tow. He barely noticed how each step lit up one by one as his foot touched the first one. There were too many impressions to take in at once. Around him, a cacophony of multilingual swears rose as pallets crashed into each other on the slippery floor and people yelped, smashing their fingers and their toes were run over by accident in the process, but Jack paid them no attention. The place – the _city_? Was it truly Atlantis? – was unlike anything he’d seen before, and he _had_ seen more than most people.

As he reached the top of the stairs and turned to glance back, it amazed him how harmoniously the Gate – a sleeker, more streamlined one than that on Earth – fit into the rest of the room. It had an elegance and almost organic functionality to it that the Gate room of the SGC, built by the practical-minded human military, decidedly lacked.

The top of the stairs had to be some kind of control room, its consoles sealed with what seemed to be glass or a layer of transparent plastic, conserving and protecting them for potential future users. Powered down for who knew how long – but as Jack looked at it now, he could see the faintest flicker of lights under that indestructible layer. He could have sworn they hadn’t been there before.

At the same time, he could also feel a barely perceivable prickling in the back of his head… not unlike the feeling he’d always had when he helped the Doctor pilot the TARDIS. Some sort of connection one could only feel when connecting with intelligent technology. He looked at Ianto, who was wearing the strangest expression ever seen on his face. Apparently, he felt the same.

And that was when the penny finally dropped.

“A starship!” Jack breathed in awe. “This whole place is a _starship_ – and a frigging huge one!”

Ianto stared at him as if asking if he’d lost his mind but Markova – now wearing a uniform like everyone else, and her lush hair in such a tight knot that Jack’s scalp started hurting by the mere sight of it – pushed her pallet out of the way and nodded calmly.

“That it is, Captain,“ she said. “I didn’t believe Doctor Jackson’s theory that the Ancients simply left Earth _together_ with Atlantis – it seemed too far-fetched, even for him – but it seems he was right.”

Jack nodded absently, trying to wrap his mind around the idea of a whole _city_ flying across galaxies… and failed, at least for the time being. Even after all that he’d already seen, this was several magnitudes too big to comprehend. Not even the TARDIS with her chameleon circuitry, an amazing result of transdimensional engineering, did have these dimensions.

Professor Taylor came up behind Markova, cursing in a ridiculous mix of English and Welsh as his pallet was skidding out of control on the slippery floor, looked around and yelled. “Who the hell's turning on the lights?”

Jack shrugged. During the few weeks of SGC training, he’d come to dislike Professor Taylor with a passion, even though the man seemed to be fond of him – well, despised him less than other people would have been the better description – because of his connection to the Doctor. The professor clearly idolized the Doctor, which made him hold all ex-companions in high regard - even Mickey, whom he clearly considered unworthy to breathe the same air as his idol. 

He was even willing to _overlook_ Jack’s _failings_ , including the fact that Jack was married to a man. This didn’t make Jack hate his homophobic guts any less, and it had become clear early enough that he wasn’t alone with that feeling. Taylor had managed to become the single most unpopular expedition member within three weeks, and not only because of his homophobia. He was also whiny, condescending, vain and generally a pain in the arse – and that _not_ in a good way.

Unfortunately, he was also absolutely brilliant, and they needed him.

“Security teams, any sign of additional inhabitation?” Magambo’s voice came over the headsets, crisp and clear.

Jack didn’t need to hear the chorus of negative answers coming from the scouting teams. He could _feel_ that they were alone. _She’s been sleeping for a long time_ , the thought occurred to him, not the least surprised that he’d consider Atlantis a _she_. Sailing ships of old times had been generally referred to as _she_. The TARDIS was referred to as a _she_ , and with reason, as he knew out of personal experience. And now he was quite sure that Atlantis was a _she_ , too.

He glanced at the awakening consoles and saw with something akin to a shock that the transparent covering was… well, _melting away_ would have been the best description for it. Only that there was no residue at all. The substance simply… _melted_ , and then it was simply gone. Just like that.

“Are _you_ doing that?” Professor Taylor demanded, sounding even more irritable than usual. He darted across the room, glared at the consoles, and then back at Jack and frowned. “Someone's gotta be. Is it _you_? Did you touch anything?”

“I don't ... think so,” Jack said slowly. The prickling in the back of his head had settled, but he could still sense a… _presence_ , similarly to the way one could always _sense_ the TARDIS on a subconscious level.

Professor Taylor threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “Oh, don’t bloody give me _that_! Either you touched something or you didn't. It's a yes/no question. Surely, even _your_ must be able to answer it!”

“No,” Jack said, fighting the urge to kill the abrasive scientist. He could probably argue that it was self-defence and get away with it.

Dr. Zelenka skittered by, his pallet sliding out of control. He cursed, loudly and inventively, in a language that had to be Czech. Tolineva, the pretty Russian lieutenant hurried to his aid, righting the pallet and patting his back, saying something in Russian encouragingly. Zelenka answered in the same language, flashing her a dimpled smile that was surprisingly charming. Jack started to understand why most women seemed to like the scruffy little Czech so much. There was clearly more to Zelenka than what met the eye.

Zelenka caught his look, waved him and laughed, his blue eyes dancing behind his glasses merrily. Then he moved on, catching up with Markova and started talking to her in rapid-fire Russian. Jack remembered Ianto mentioning that the two had worked together for years and were possibly friends.

Behind them, Professor Taylor was still ranting. “Well, someone's gotta be. And I can't make heads nor tails of _anything_ here, and I read Ancient.” Dr. Corrigan, who happened to walk close by, snorted. Taylor gave him a quelling look. “Well, all right, I read _some_ Ancient. Still, I ought to understand these things with _that_. Only I do not.”

Jack followed his unhappy look. The covering was now completely gone, revealing crystal-looking switches lit up with the symbols that he knew to represent Earth's gate address. They looked subtly different, however, even though he couldn’t quite put his finger on the actual difference.

“Sleeping Beauty is awakening,” Ianto murmured next to him, and he nodded. That summarized it quite accurately.

“Hands, hands, _hands_ ,” Magambo was yelling beneath them. The surface of the floor was bloody slippery, pallets were sliding everywhere out of control, and there had already been more than a few collisions, while more stuff was coming through the Gate every second. Jack shook himself and ran down the steps to help with it.

The Gate held for twenty-eight minutes and fifty-two seconds before it shut down, spent of power. They'd managed to get through _all_ the critical supplies, past all of tiers one and two of the non-essentials, and were three-quarters of the way through tier three, catching each pallet as it was shoved through by helpful hands on the other side of the Gate, before the wormhole collapsed.

“It seems to me that we’ve overpacked by a factor of about twenty,” Jack commented, eyeing the results that filled the cavernous Gate room, piled way above their heads.

“I have the feeling that we’ll be eternally grateful for _that_ , soon,” Ianto replied seriously.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Standing on top of the stairs that led to the Control room, Dr. Liz Shaw gazed at the well-organized chaos that was her expedition, absolutely awestruck, and for the time being, she couldn’t have moved, even if her life depended on it. She was an old woman who’d seen more in her long life than most people could ever dream of, but she felt with a certainty she couldn’t explain that _this_ was the ultimate fulfilment of her long and distinguished career.

She'd been surprised that UNIT would choose her, of all people, to lead this expedition. The Americans had wanted Elizabeth Weir, one of their trained diplomats, but the I.O.A refused to accept an American leader. They’d also wanted someone with a scientific degree or two; someone who’d be able to understand the science the expedition would have to deal with. As an accomplished scientists with degrees in several disciplines (including physics and medicine) Liz Shaw had been the logical choice.

Or _would_ have been, if not for her age… or so she’d thought.

“You see it from the wrong angle, Liz,” the Brigadier had told her. “We don’t need a super-scientist as the head of the expedition. Or a professional diplomat. We need someone with a great deal of experience and leadership abilities who would be able to serve as the head of a _colony_ , should you not find your way back home.”

And so they’d given her Sevarion Kirkitadze, a Georgian lawyer with German citizenship who’d worked as an attorney for decades, to deal with any legal issues that might emerge; and a team of ex-cops to work as the police force of a future colony, just in case. They had prepared her for every possibility.

The only possibility she was _not_ prepared for was to find Atlantis intact. She’d expected to find a ruined city – undisturbed by treasure hunters at best, already loitered and empty at worst. Or that they’d find the late descendants of the Ancients that had once inhabited the city and would have to arrange themselves… or even fight them. But _this_ … this looked too good to be true.

She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But until _that_ happened, they still had a job to do, and so she glanced over to the command area, where her secret weapon, the immortal Captain Harkness, was examining things, making them come alive by merely passing them.

“Jack, how are you doing that?” she asked.

The captain turned around, his hands held in the air in a defensive gesture.

“I'm not touching anything, I swear,” he said, sounding frustrated.

“I _told_ you that you were doing it,” Professor Taylor exclaimed. “Do I need to tie your hands behind your back?”

“That wouldn’t help, I believe,” Markova intervened, stepping to one of the screens that had just lit up blue. “It’s the gene; and probably not even his,” she glanced at Ianto. “Yours are much stronger, isn’t it?”

The young Welshman nodded. “I checked out as the strongest gene carrier in the Torchwood Three team,” he replied. “I reckon it _could_ have been me. But what have I done?”

“You’ve probably booted up some pre-programmed routines,” Toshiko guessed. “And not just you; Jack, me, all gene carriers… the City recognized the gene and is now coming back to life.”

“You mean Atlantis thinks we’re the progeny of her builders?” Jack asked.

“Well, we _are_ , in a sense,” Tosh answered with a shrug, “or we wouldn’t have the gene. I think at least one gene carrier with each search team would be a good thing, just to keep Atlantis cooperative.”

“That’s a sound idea,” Liz Shaw looked at Magambo, who was still busy ordering people into some semblance of… well, _order_ ; then she looked at Jack again. “Well, Jack, since the UNIT soldiers will be occupied with organizing things here for a while, it’s up to you to make the first survey.”

Jack broke into a huge grin.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, touching his headset at the same time. “Sergeant Bates, Mr. Naseband, take your teams and fan out. Secure the immediate area and report anything of possible interest. Tosh, Ianto, Suzie, Mickey – you’re with me. Take the stun guns and the Torchwood-issue PDAs, just in case, and let’s move on. The sooner we get a picture of this place, the better.”

His team – minus Owen and Gwen, who was with the civilian security – moved as one. Just like in old times. Jack felt a sudden surge of pride, seeing how professional they were approaching the unusual task. No matter what Sir John Sudbury might have thought of them, his people were _good_.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Jack chose a random direction – as long as it was different from where the other two teams left – and hurried out of the Gate room. In the heart of his hearts he regretted a little that he wasn’t allowed to wear his greatcoat (although he’d brought it to Atlantis as one of the few personal items allowed). The acute lack of impressive billowing all but ruined his grand departure. Yes, he _was_ a bit vain and he readily admitted it; more so as Ianto’s disappointed look revealed how much the young Welshman missed the coat, too.

Weapons on the ready and highly alert, they walked down endless corridors and up a few very long strings of steps, through several sets of double doors that hissed open obediently as they approached. The lights, too, went on along their way, making torches unnecessary. Still, there was nothing of importance, just huge rooms, the purpose of which remained unknown. Perhaps the geeks would figure out later what there were for.

“This is useless,” Jack decided, disappointed. “We check out the next floor, and then return to the Gate room. Perhaps the other teams were luckier.”

The others agreed, and they went up another stairway, to a large double door that would have matched an airplane hangar on Earth. The doors opened automatically, Jack marched in – and stopped mid-stride, eyes going wide and a smile of pure delight cracking his face. He looked like a little boy in a candy shop, and seeing his reaction the rest of the team hurried in to see what had made him so happy.

The sight was beyond their wildest dreams. They stood in a cavernous room that stretched up so high one could barely see the ceiling. Myfanwy could have flown her rounds in there, without the danger of injuring herself. And all around them, like locomotives stored in a giant roundhouse, were six shuttle-sized vessels.

“Wow!” Mickey was the first to break the awestruck silence. “Are these what I think they are?”

“Yep,” Jack said happily. “I’d say they are the shuttles of Atlantis. Which makes sense, if the city is a starship herself – she’s too big to land on planets easily. The Ancients would need some more… practical means of transportation.”

“But why are the shuttles so small?” Suzie asked with a frown. “There must have lived thousands of people on Atlantis. It’s not logical to have such small vessels. What if they had to evacuate?”

“They had the Stargate for that,” Tosh pointed out. And in that very moment, Ianto suddenly had a revelation.

“That’s it exactly!” he said. “These are… these are _gateships_. They’re so small cos they need to fit through the Stargate.”

“That makes sense,” Jack agreed, “but do we know whether they’re spaceborne at all? Perhaps they were only meant for atmospheric use.”

“I find that unlikely, if they wanted to set down survey teams on planets without a Stargate,” Tosh replied. “But I can take a look at the propulsion system if you want me to... and if Suzie and Mickey can help me.”

“Do it,” Jack said. “I want to know everything about these ships before the others discover them. And people… I want to keep this found among us for the time being. Until we learn all that’s there to learn about it.”

“You won’t be able to keep them secret forever, Jack,” Ianto warned him. “Others may stumble over them the same way we did.”

“It’s not for forever,” Jack replied. “Just for a little longer. I need an advantage.”

Ianto shook his head. “You’ll have to learn to cooperate, Jack,” he said. “We’re not a little team of misfits any longer. We need to fit in.”

Jack knew, of course, that Ianto was right and acting behind Dr. Shaw’s back would lead to a power play they actually couldn’t afford. It was just so that he’d so grown used to act independently. Sure, he’d reported to UNIT, in theory, and even to Torchwood One until its destruction, but when it came to day-to-day business, he’d been pretty much on his own. That was about to radically change now, and he wasn’t sure he liked the thought.

Before he could have answered to Ianto – not that he’d have a good answer anyway – his headset came alive.

“Captain Harkness,” Bates’ voice said. “Can you come down to meet us? I think you definitely need to see _this_.”

“This, and about a thousand other things,” Jack muttered. “All right, Sergeant, where are you?”

“Three levels down, compared to the Gate room,” Bates replied with military precision. “Follow the left-hand corridor.”

Jack sighed. They’d just come all the way up, and now he’d have to go twice the way down again. But if Bates said he _had_ to see whatever was there, he needed to go down. Bates wouldn’t ask for his presence, were it not important.

“On my way,” he told the Sergeant; then he looked at Tosh. “Will you be all right here, the three of you?”

“Sure,” Tosh waved his concern off, impatiently, her mind already on the little ship with her unlocked secrets. “Go!”

Jack nodded and waved Ianto to follow him. They went back all the way to the Gate room they’d come. Saw Markova ordering around her scientists to bring the Control room back to full function, rattling down a list of equipment half of which didn’t make any sense to Jack, despite his technical knowledge. Dr. Shaw was watching them with an amused half-smile, as they burst into a blur of organized chaos that, nonetheless, seemed to have a method behind it.

“Found anything?” she asked Jack. After a moment of hesitation, Jack evaded a direct answer.

“I’ll show you later. First, I need to see what Bates found. Wanna come down with us?”

She nodded and fell in step with them at once – an impressive feat from such an elderly lady. They went down another three levels, turned to the left, then walked through a set of ornate doors, beyond which stood a vast, floor-to-ceiling window. And beyond that…

“Oh. My. God.” Jack inhaled deeply as he stepped closer to the viewport, made of clear glass – or rather some transparent material light years beyond Earth’s technical knowledge. He didn’t even realize that he was no longer speaking English, but in his mother tongue that was nowhere yet in existence.

Beyond the glass lay a vast city of sweeping spires and arching walkways. A beautiful city of ethereal elegance, all covered by a thin layer of energy. The city stretched out beneath them in all directions, huge and incomprehensible…

… and submerged. They were under water. Under a _lot_ of water. As they watched, another section came alive, and a trail of bubbles rose slowly. Looking up, far above them, they found the source of the mottled blue light that seemed to permeate the whole complex. It was sunlight, filtered through the vast amount of water surrounding them.

“We're under water,” Dr. Shaw breathed, hesitating between awe and mortal fear.

”Several hundred feet, I’d say,” Bates replied matter-of-factly. “We've only been able to secure a tiny fraction of the city. It's _huge_. But if we can't dial out, this might be a problem.”

 _If we can’t dial out_. That was the experienced SGC veteran speaking, assessing the situation and looking for a way out. They were underwater. And they only had _one_ tiny, two-man research submarine… unless the little shuttles they’d found were water proof. They really _did_ have a problem.

“Captain, Doctor Shaw!” Professor Taylor burst into the room, agitated, but whether in a good or in a bad way, it was hard to tell… and stopped, gaping at the window. “Oh, my!”

”Impressive, isn’t it?” Ianto asked with that blank face he’d usually reserved for _particularly_ stupid customers in the tourist office. “It seems we’re under _water_.”

“Yes, I was just coming to tell you,” Professor Taylor had already shaken off the first impression. “It took us some time to figure out what the sensors were saying, but… well, yes, we _are_ submerged. Fortunately, there seems to be some kind of force-field holding back the water… Wait a minute,” he peered through the window with a frown. “Did lights just go on in that section?”

“Jack nodded with a soft smile. “Yeah. She’s lighting up all over.”

“ _She_?” Taylor repeated with a frown. Then he shrugged. “Anyway, Beckett found some kind of holographic recording, and Markova says we should all see it, as it apparently explains a lot.”

“Very well,” Dr. Shaw turned away from the sight reluctantly. “Show us the way.”

There would be time enough to savour the beauty of Atlantis later. Or so she hoped.


	7. Sleeping Beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 06 - SLEEPING BEAUTY**

The over-excited Professor Taylor led them through the corridors of Atlantis at a breakneck speed, talking a mile a minute as they went. Jack shut off his babbling consciously, focussing instead on how the lights were flicking on constantly as they passed. The entire city – the _starship_ , he corrected himself – seemed to be waking up, to be welcoming them. As if she’d been happy to have inhabitants – to have a _crew_ – again. 

Jack asked himself what kinds of wonders were waiting for them to see behind each closed door. What secrets were there to uncover? At this rare moment, he was almost glad about being immortal. At least he’d have enough time to discover all that there is to see on Atlantis.

He had a strange vision about himself, raising generation after generation on Atlantis, teaching them the secrets of the Ancient city-ship, learning new secrets together with them… perhaps bringing Atlantis to fly among the stars again…

… until they came to a halt in front of a double door, and he nearly crashed into Dr. Shaw, so deep he’d been in his little fantasy. Professor Taylor opened the door, they walked inside – and Jack found himself staring at a stunningly beautiful woman in long white robes.

The woman stood on a low dais in the centre of the room, and it took a moment for them to realize that she wasn’t real. Yes, she was a hologram, but a highly advanced one. She was in the middle of a pre-recorded speech when they entered, with Dr. Beckett watching the recording with almost proprietary pride – he’d been the one to find it, after all.

“The recording loops,” he explained to the others. “This is my second time through. I can rewind it for you, starting from the beginning.”

He concentrated for a moment, not displaying any of his usual discomfort using his gene, and suddenly the galaxy – or, at least, a very convincing holographic facsimile of it – exploded high below the ceiling, swirling above them in all its marvellous intricacy. Listening to the recording, they could witness the expansion of the Ancients in the Pegasus galaxy, watching the amazing number of planets on which they’d seeded life. It was like watching Creation at work in HD quality – the birth of Paradise itself.

Like every paradise, though, this one had its very own serpent as well. The hologram reported the discovery of a terrible enemy, and they could follow the simulated events of a merciless war on the galactic map above their heads. Watch the Ancients lose ground steadily, until they were driven back to Atlantis – and besieged. Apparently, the shields of the city had been enough to withstand the enemy’s weapons, at least for a number of years… but not forever. In the end, the Ancients had no other choice but to submerge Atlantis beneath the ocean, where the enemy clearly couldn’t discover them.

“Here goes our mission of peaceful exploration,” Jack muttered, eyeing the holographic image of the massive enemy ship above them: dark, angular and bristling with armour. Why did the bad guys always have the superior weapons? It was deeply unfair!

The hologram, in the meantime, finished its story, telling them how the majority of the surviving Ancients had returned home, to Earth – where they’d obviously passed on the gene that enabled their late progeny to operate their technology. The last survivors had lived out the rest of their lives on Atlantis, letting the city-ship slumber, until the distant day when their progeny might return.

“Who’d have guessed,” Ianto said quietly, after the message had ended and the hologram vanished. “The legend of Atlantis, a great city that sunk into the ocean… it _was_ true, after all.”

“It just didnae happen on Earth,” Beckett finished, his accent thickening with emotion.

Dr. Shaw nodded. “The Ancient Greeks must have heard about it from the surviving Ancients,” she theorized. “At the same time when these intermarried with our ancestors and passed down the ATA gene.”

Jack nodded in agreement. “Unfortunately, they passed down more than just the gene,” he said. “If the enemy that was fierce enough to defeat the builders of the frigging _Stargates_ is still around somewhere in this galaxy, then our chances are suboptimal, to say the least.”

Not his own chances, of course. He’d survive just about _anything_ – and wasn’t _that_ a depressing thought? – but the tale they’d just been told changed everything. Turned all their expectations to ashes.

Atlantis was no longer a city of wonders and ancient knowledge beyond their understanding. She wasn’t their last, best hope against the Goa’uld, the Replicators and whatever other foe mankind might run into in their home galaxy anymore. She was a ghost ship. An empty shell, the last refuge of a lost civilization, driven to extinction by an enemy so relentless that all their technology couldn’t save them.

That fact didn’t make Jack particularly reassured. All he’d heard about the Ancients during SGC training had suggested that those guys were super-powerful. If _they_ couldn’t handle this mysterious enemy, what chance would Earth – or rather a handful of human adventurers – have against them?”

The disturbed silence was interrupted by Dr. Peter Grodin, Dr. Shaw’s scientific aide, who charged into the room and whispered something urgently into Professor Taylor’s ear. The Welsh scientist became deathly pale at once and yelled at Beckett to turn off the holographic projection, at the same moment as the Ancient woman appeared again. Beckett looked at Taylor in startled surprise but obeyed.

“Do we have a problem?” he asked.

Professor Taylor rolled his eyes with such intensity that it was probably only his glasses that kept them in their sockets.

“ _A problem_?” he repeated with a near-hysterical overtone. “Oh no, we don’t have any bloody problem, unless you consider the fact that power levels are dropping throughout the city a _problem_.”

“Which means what in exact numbers?” Dr. Shaw asked with admirable self-discipline.

She was one tough lady; Jack had to give her _that_. She also seemed to know whom she could expect a more coherent answer from, as she was looking at Grodin, not at Taylor.

“It means,” the dark-skinned Englishman replied slowly, “that if we don't stop what we're doing right now and stop bleeding power like this, we will die.”

Jack stiffened, realization hitting him like a brick wall. There were thousands of tons of water over their heads, held back by some kind of force field that had probably been up and running since the Ancients’ last battle. Should the city run out of power, the force field would collapse and the whole structure would be crushed like a nutshell.

They had the choice between dying by drowning and dying by being crushed under pressure. Not _him_ , of course. Never _him_. But everyone else, _including_ Ianto and the rest of his team. Including the small children their parents hadn’t wanted to leave behind, possibly orphaned. Now they’d die with their parents, too. Everyone will die, with the sole exception of one Jack Harkness, immortal freak, courtesy of a nineteen-year-old high on power no mortal man or woman ought to have touched.

Sometimes he wondered what he’d done in those two years he could no longer remember for the universe to hate him so much.

“All right,” Dr. Shaw said, breaking the stunned silence. “What can we do to stop the loss of power?”

“We can’t _stop_ it,” Professor Taylor was still remotely hysterical. Liz’ eyebrows drew into an angry line but Grodin raised a placating hand.

“Let me talk to Markova,” he said. “We _can_ try to slow down the power loss by using the _naquadah_ generators we’ve brought with us. That _might_ buy us some time. Just give us an hour or two.”

“And what are _we_ supposed to do in the meantime?” Jack asked.

“We could send out a team via Stargate and try to find a viable evacuation site,” Dr. Shaw said. “Even if we won’t be able to save Atlantis, there’s no need to die with the city. We have the people and the equipment to survive on a different planet.” She looked at Grodin. “I know we can’t open the wormhole back to Earth, but we _can_ gate anywhere within the Pegasus galaxy, can’t we?”

Grodin nodded reluctantly. “The power requirement to travel _within_ a galaxy is a fraction of what’s required to gate between two separate galaxies.”

“It would still draw power,” Professor Taylor muttered petulantly. “Power we can’t afford to waste. Hell, just _being_ in this room is a waste of power!”

“Well, professor, you may prefer staying here and die in a day or two, but I’m sure the rest of our people would choose to live,” Liz Shaw retorted, getting fed up with his attitude already. She’d been warned that he wasn’t an easy person to work with, but she hadn’t expected him to be _this_ unlikable. “Peter, have you and Markova been able to access the Stargate control systems?”

“Actually, it was Doctor Kusanagi, with the help of Zelenka, but yeah, we have,” Grodin answered. “There’s a whole library of Gate addresses in that database. Also, this Gate has apparently a shield, to keep out uninvited guests – not surprising, considering how long they were at war.”

Liz nodded. “Good enough. Captain,” she looked at Jack, “assemble a team. We need to find a safe harbour. Or, better still, a reliable power source.”

Jack couldn’t resist the urge to salute her – and _not_ out of mockery. “Yes, Ma’am!” then he activated his headset. “Sergeant Bates, gather your team and gear up for an off-world mission. Departure in ten. Take Dr. Corrigan with you, just in case. Gwen, Andy, you with me, too. Meet me in the Gate room – and be on time!” he added warningly.

“You’re taking the Marines and two _civilians_?” Professor Taylor sputtered indignantly.

“Those Marines have years' worth of experience in exactly such sort of missions,” Jack replied, trying to stay calm. “And my so-called _civilians_ used to be police constables – well-trained in dealing with potentially hostile crowds.”

Besides, he wanted to keep an eye on Gwen and the newbie, but he wouldn’t tell outsiders _that_.

“I wish I could go with you,” Ianto murmured.

“Me, too,” Jack admitted, “but I need you here. Keep an eye on the others for me, will you?”

“Don’t I always?” Ianto replied simply. Which was such a profound truth that Jack didn’t even need to acknowledge it.

“Take care,” he murmured, kissing Ianto unhurriedly in front of everyone and not giving a shit about Professor Taylor’s vaguely disgusted expression. The bloody homophobic scientist could go to hell, as much as he cared. Ianto was _his_ , they were _married_ , and they might never see each other again, so he’d be damned if he left without kissing him goodbye properly.

“I’ll come back,” he promised, “I’ll always come back to you.”

“I know you will,” Ianto smiled. “Now, go! You told the others to be on time. It would be bad for morale if _you_ were the one who’s late.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Jack was indeed the last one to reach the Gate room, as he had to find and repack his gear first, so that it wouldn’t weigh a ton. Bates and his men were waiting and ready, as if they’d done this hundreds of times already. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, actually – they’d just done it in a different galaxy.

Gwen and Andy were standing a little on the side, slightly intimidated by the dismissive looks of the Marines. Dr. Corrigan, experienced SGC veteran that he was, stood with them and grinned at them encouragingly.

“Ready to go, sir,” Bates told Jack simply. “Wherever it will be.”

“I haven’t got a clue,” Jack admitted, looking at Grodin for help. “Suggestions?”

The Englishman shrugged. “Pick an address, look at the rest,” he said succinctly.

Jack looked at the endless row of available Gate addresses coming up on the screen. Trying not to over-think the incalculable and potentially devastating consequences of his random choice. Hating the unquestionable fact that whatever might happen, it wouldn’t harm _him_. He was Captain Indestructible. The one cursed to watch everyone _else_ die left and right from him.

“Can you localize the closest planet with a Gate?” he asked. The thought of moving to the immediate neighbourhood was… comforting, for some weird reason.

Grodin briefly consulted with Dr. Kusanagi, and the shy little Japanese scientist pointed at one of the first addresses in the column. Jack nodded.

“Works for me. Start dialling, guys.”

The Chinese Gate technician whose name Jack couldn’t remember at the moment (although he was sure _Ianto_ would) hit the first symbol, and despite himself, despite their situation, Jack couldn’t deny that he was getting excited. Yes, they’d done the Gate routine _ad nauseam_ back on Earth. But this was the first time they would actually set foot on a planet in a foreign _galaxy_. Atlantis was a _ship_ , and one hiding on the bottom of the ocean, at that. Behind the Gate, there lay a wholly uncharted, utterly alien _world_.

He hadn’t seen something so profoundly new for a very long time.

Unlike the Stargate on Earth, this one didn’t spin when activated. Instead, the lit symbol itself blinked around the rim of the Gate and locked at the top. It was a beautiful sight, also hinting at a considerable technical development during the time between the construction of the two Gates. The symbols spun so fast that by the time the Gate technician hit the last one on the Ancient DHD, the Gate already whooshed open.

“Go,” Liz Shaw gave Jack a little push. “Go and bring back good news.”

Jack gestured to Bates. “After you, Sergeant. You are the off-world expert here.”

Bates gave him one of his rare half-smiles.

“Actually, MALP first, sir,” he corrected, and Jack felt the urge to blush, because how could he have forgotten about _that_?

Fortunately, Grodin was already at it, sending the mobile probe through the Gate and calling up the readings on the control screen.

“The MALP reads full viability,” he reported. “No immediate signs of activity around the Stargate; but it’s apparently nighttime over there. You’ll need night vision goggles.”

A red-capped UNIT soldier by the rank of a Private was already distributing the equipment among the Marines and helped Gwen, who clearly didn’t know what to do, affix her goggle. Grodin handed Bates something like a TV remote.

“Your GDO, Sergeant,” he said.

Bates nodded his thanks and tucked the thing into his vest. Jack, receiving his own, followed suit.

“What about ours?” Gwen asked, looking at Grodin with eyes wide with excitement.

“Usually, only the team leaders need one,” Grodin replied, seemingly unaffected by the doe-eyed routine; perhaps he was naturally immune. “The rest of you stay with your team leaders. Without a personal identification code, sent back through the Gate via a radio signal by this GDO, the shield will remain closed, so be sure to use it.”

“Got it,” Jack nodded, and then he looked at Bates. “Shall we move out, Sergeant?”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The ride through the wormhole was as wild as ever, although a lot shorter than the trip from home. Jack found it invigorating as always – his only regret being that it was over too fast. Almost before he knew it, he was stepping out on the other side… into a world of darkness. It was almost like during his years as a Time Agent: facing the great unknown, without preparation, without previous knowledge of what might be waiting for him, each and every one of his senses on high alert.

Dead leaves and twigs crunched under his boots – a forest of some kind, perhaps. Through his night goggles he could see the nearby trees; they looked fairly similar to any other trees in any other forest in Earth’s temperate zone. Not really surprising, if he wanted to be honest. The Ancients had sown human life all across the Pegasus galaxy; and human life needed specific circumstances. There were certain variables, for sure – Jack had seen a fairly broad scale as a time traveller – but the basics were always the same. This particular branch of evolution didn’t allow for too large divergences from the norm.

He almost felt something like regret, sudden visions of three-headed, sparkly purple aliens with tails floating his mind. That would have been fun! He imagined Bates marching forward and telling the creatures: _We come in peace. Take us to your leader_. He had a _really_ hard time to suppress an almost hysterical giggle by _that_ mental image.

He became abruptly serious again, though, as Bates suddenly held up his fist. The Marines, who’d already spread out and moved out, froze… waiting, listening. One of them, Toussaint or Teague, Jack could never tell which was which, they were both big, black and mean-looking, grabbed Gwen who was clearly about to ask something, and covered her mouth with a large palm… not too gently. Gwen struggled briefly (and futilely) but came to her senses after a moment and went still.

There was a sound behind them… as if someone – or something – would be crashing through the undergrowth, closing fast… more than just one sound, in fact. Jack whirled around, heart racing in excitement, and saw a shadow dart out of the trees, some thirty yards ahead. Something small, darker than the darkness around them, and awfully fast, running away.

At Bates’ signal, the Marines split up, circling to approach from opposite direction, while Jack, Gwen and Andy took centre. Andy moved with surprising ease, his training with the royal armed forces coming back alive. Jack kept Gwen at his side, just in case. She was the least experienced of them all; he didn’t want her to get hurt.

Somewhere ahead of them, a twig snapped, and the sound of a snuffle and a high-pitched scream echoed through the darkness. Jack started running, his team members in tow. He hoped Gwen wasn’t aiming at his head at the same time. He would come back, of course, but death was a messy business nonetheless – and he’d have liked to keep his ace in his sleeve for a while yet.

In a small clearing up ahead, he could make out one of the Marines, holding his P-90 at a short figure – supposedly the source of the scream – that was covering before him in terror.

“Don’t shoot!” Corrigan, who was the closest of them all, warned.

Suddenly another small figure barrelled from the trees. It was dressed in long, black robes, wearing some kind of fearsome mask, like a skull or something like that. It broadsided the Marine, knocking him to the ground and screaming like a banshee. They couldn’t understand the words, but it wasn’t necessary. It was clear enough that it wanted to protect its comrade.

It was also clearly the voice of a child… but why was the kid so terrified?

“It’s the goggles!” Andy said, as if reading Jack’s thought. “They’ve probably never seen anything like this before.”

Gwen was already struggling to yank off her goggles. As soon as she’d managed to do so, she threw them away – _there goes twenty thousand dollars of tax payers’ money_ , Bates commented _sotto voce_ , signalling one of his Marines to pick up the things – ran to the frightened child and smothered it in a motherly hug.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry!” she cooed. “It’s gonna be all right, don’t fear, everything’s gonna be all right. I’ve got you, I’m here now, don’t fear…”

“Miss,” one of the Marines, a fresh-faced Staff Sergeant by the name of Stackhouse said with forced patience, “you’re frightening the kid. He probably doesn’t understand a word of what you’re saying. It’s unlikely that the natives in this galaxy would speak English.”

“A good thing, then, that we have our little data storage unit,” Jack fished Tosh’s alien iPod out of his pocket.

Bates gave it a doubtful look. “That gonna help?” 

Jack nodded. “Eventually, yeah. The more words it can record from a language, the faster does it figure out grammar and syntax. Or so our computer genius says.”

“Kind of a universal translator, huh?” one of the Privates, a straw-haired young man of a size of a walk-in closet and the guileless mind of a twelve-year-old asked in delight. “Like in Star Trek?”

“Shut up, Smitty,” several others replied in unison, but with a fond undertone. Smitty might be an idiot, but he was _their_ idiot.

“Actually, it’s a fitting comprise,” Jack said, and Smitty’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “It works along the same principles. So, let the kid talk, to give our little gizmo enough data to work with.”

The Marines looked at each other… then pushed Smitty forward. The Private took off his goggles, squatted down and stretched out his arm, broad palm turned upwards, to the first kid.

“He theri,” he said slowly, with a child-like smile on his face. “I’m PFC Smith, but everyone calls me Smitty. And who would be you?”

The kid, a round-faced, dark-haired boy of perhaps twelve, stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, but he seemed to have understood if not the words, at least the intent behind them.

“J-Jinto,” he said. Then, waiving in the direction of the black-robed creature with the mask, he added. “Wex.”

The chubby boy, whose name was apparently Wex, pulled off his mask. His cheeks were round and rosy like an apple, his eyes glittering with curiosity.

 _So much about three-headed purple aliens with tails_ , Jack thought with regret. Looking at PFC Smith, he only said. “Go on, Private. Make friends.”

Smitty beamed at him, made himself comfortable on the grassy forest floor and began talking to the kids. Putting down his backpack, Corrigan joined them, ready to record the entire conversation for future linguistic research.

“Stand down,” Bates ordered the others. “Knowing Smitty, this is gonna take a while.”

His Marines obeyed laconically. They were all SGC veterans. This wasn’t their first contact premiere. They were willing to wait as long as it would take.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
When Ianto returned to the Control room, after having seen Jack off, half the engineering staff was frantically trying to interface all available _naquadah_ generators with the city’s power grid. A seemingly chaotic amount of wires and cables trailed across the floor, patching laptops and monitoring equipment into the Ancient technology. The hectic activity was _not_ being organized by Markova or Professor Taylor – both of whom were geniuses, yet more on the theoretical side, although Markova had already proved to be utterly pragmatic and practical-minded as well – but by Dr. Zelenka, who was shooting instructions in a strange mix of English, French, Russian and Czech. Stranger yet, people seemed to understand him nonetheless. Even Suzie, who admittedly didn’t speak any other languages than English.

Ianto wasn’t surprised to see that Suzie had been drafted into the all-important task of saving every last watt of power – and thus their lives for a couple of more hours. Suzie might not have a PhD, but she did have a few degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering as well as in computer sciences. _And_ she had an uncanny knack to make equipment work everyone else would give up on at first sight. Right now, she was helping Grodin to connect pieces of tech that were, theoretically, incompatible.

“How’s it going?” Ianto asked.

“Not good,” Suzie replied, without looking up from her work. “It’s like strapping a steam train to the Space Shuttle. But it’s the best we can do.”

Dr. Zelenka wiggled out from under the Ancient console, his hair even more fuzzy than usual, and looked up at Ianto in a bird-like manner.

“We have serious problem,” he explained. “Atlantis is powered by three ZPMs. Two are completely drained, and one's on its last legs. The amount of power shield is taking is... _immense_. We're slowing drain with help of _naquadah_ generators, not stopping it. We’ve got…” he looked at the readouts, looked at the generators, made some quick calculation in his head, “…two days, maybe three, until catastrophic shield failure.”

Ianto thanked them and left them to their work. There was no use distracting them, as he couldn’t be of significant help anyway. They’d got better trained engineers for _that_. He climbed the steps to the office with a balcony looking down at the Gate room where Dr. Shaw had taken temporary residence. At least they _thought_ it might have been an office, as it didn’t seem to have any practical function.

He found the expedition leader in the company of Markova and the two UNIT officers. Captain Price, being an engineer herself, had clearly assessed the situation already and was now suggesting escape strategies. They were _not_ happy when Ianto told them what he’d just learned from Dr. Zelenka.

Dr. Shaw paled visibly. “Are you saying that…?”

“I’m afraid that the minute Captain Harkness and his team come back, we need to get out of here,” Captain Price replied in Ianto’s stead. “We’ve already lost two sections of the city. It’s not _safe_. The sooner we leave, the longer the shield holds; the more time we’ll have to salvage what we can.”

“ _If_ we can find a safe planet, that is,” Captain Magambo added grimly.

Liz Shaw nodded. “True enough. But if Captain Harkness’ team checks back all right, I’d say we start sending everyone nonessential through the Gate without delay.”

Markova nodded, too, although her face was stricken. “I hate the thought of leaving all this _knowledge_ behind,” she admitted. “But as amazing as this place is, it’s not worth dying for. Perhaps we _can_ return yet; once we’ve found a suitable power source on some other world.”

“Perhaps,” Captain Magambo allowed. “At least we’d be alive to _try_.”

“Very well,” Liz Shaw sighed. Her expression hardened, and she activated her headset. “All hands,” she said with admirable calmness,” report to the Gate room for immediate evacuation,” she deactivated the earpiece and looked at Ianto with a bitter smile. “Aren’t we lucky that we’ve barely unpacked anything yet?”

Ianto thought of the shiny new, state-of-the-art coffee machine he’d packed for the expedition as one of his allowed personal items and realised that he might never give it a test run. Even if they managed to escape, how would the chances stand to find electricity on some foreign planet?

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The evacuation call found Toshiko and Mickey in the shuttle bay still. They’d been informed about the power shortage, of course, but Toshiko wanted to learn as much about the little gateships as possible before they had to leave them behind. She’d managed to get inside the cockpit of one, and the ship came to life with a low hum, lights flickering on and a virtual holographic screen popping out of nowhere, with readings that she couldn’t interpret. Not _yet_.

The other ship remained dead when Mickey tried to activate the same systems, so it was probably the kind of tech that only reacted to gene carriers.

Tosh was careful _not_ to touch anything unnecessarily, lest she’d start the thing by accident. She did wish Jack hadn’t taken her little alien iPod with him to the other planet, though. She could have learned so much more about the gateship by recording the readings and running them through the translation program. But it couldn’t be helped. She’d have to wait – and hope against hope that she actually _would_ get the chance to study the ships later.

That was when the order to evacuate came, and they obeyed at once. They found the Gate room crowded to its limits already, but the Stargate hadn’t been activated yet. Toshiko hurried up to the Control room.

“How’re things going?” she asked Grodin who was coordinating the efforts there.

“Not good,” Grodin replied. “The force field holding back the ocean has collapsed to the minimum sustainable level,” he indicated the red sections of the city map displayed on the wall screen. “You can see here… and here… where the shield has already failed and the city was flooded.”

Tosh nodded grimly. It did look bad indeed. “Any luck with interfacing the _naquadah_ generators with the power system?”

“We’ve done that,” Grodin replied,” but it won’t be enough. Nowhere _near_ enough, in fact,” he sighed heavily. “We’ve come all this way for nothing…”

“It’s not over yet,” Tosh told him firmly. “Not unless we give up and declare defeat. There _has_ to be some sort of failsafe mechanism for the very case that the shield would fail.”

“Doing _what_?” Grodin asked doubtfully.

“Bringing the city back to the surface, should the shields be directly on the verge of collapsing,” Tosh explained. “I can’t imagine that a race technically as highly developed as the Ancients were would simply accept being crushed by the ocean, without leaving a way open to escape.”

“They couldn’t return to the surface!” Professor Taylor, who’d come to check on the progress of the engineering team – not that anyone would have expected him to do so – reminded her in a condescending tone. “The enemy the hologram mentioned would have destroyed the city in the moment it resurfaced.”

Toshiko shook her head. “They shield would have protected the city a lot longer if it didn’t have to hold back the ocean. The Ancients must have counted on the enemy being convinced that Atlantis had been destroyed. After a few hundred – or a few _thousand_ – years, as the case seems to be, they could afford the risk of bringing the city to the surface again.”

“Let me set this straight,” Taylor glared at her as if he were looking for signs of insanity. “You believe that _somewhere_ in the Ancient database, there is an encoded order that would make Atlantis rise to the surface?”

For a moment, Toshiko hesitated. Hearing her vague idea put into words by someone else made it sound really… strange. But then she put her foot down.

“Yes,” she said simply. Taylor threw his hands in the air.

“That’s bloody _insane_!” he exclaimed.

“Actually,” Grodin said slowly, “it is not. Let’s talk to Markova. Perhaps we’ll be lucky and someone can find that encoded instruction in time. Corrigan says there’s some linguistic shift from the version of Ancient Doctor Jackson has taught us during training.”

“Considering the years gone by in-between, it’s not surprising,” Ianto commented. “But Doctor Corrigan _can_ understand the local version of Ancient, can’t he?”

“More or less,” Grodin answered. “Assuming he’d be here, not on a mission with Captain Harkness, and that we’d have the time…”

“That means the evacuation order will remain valid until further notice,” Ianto clarified. “All right. I’ll inform Dr. Shaw.”

“And I’ll speak to Markova. _And_ to Doctor Lindsey,” Grodin said. “She’s not as fluent in Ancient as Corrigan, but certainly a lot better than I am. Radek,” he called down to the Gate room to Zelenka, “can you manage without me here for a while?”

The Czech waved at him without looking up. “If Doctor Sato can help instead.”

“Sure,” Toshiko run down the steps and sat down on the floor next to him. “What do you need me to do? Oh, I see… this interface is still unstable, connecting and disconnecting in a random pattern. Suzie, can I borrow your pliers? I need to knit these end-caps into place before…”

Ianto shut off the rest of their technobabble consciously. He had an expedition leader to inform about the new possibility and about a hundred of soon-be-panicking civilians to organize for the evacuation. It wouldn’t be easy. But Ianto Jones was nothing if not efficient.


	8. The Guardians of the Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After having seen private photos of Rachel Luttrell, I decided to free her from the horrible wig she was made to wear as Teyla. So she has her natural hair here: short, black and springy.
> 
> Also, in “Hide and Seek” Halling was heard to pray in Ancient. I know it’s a big leap from reading or actually speaking the language, but still more likely than them all understanding English, and I didn’t want our guys depend on the translation device all the time.
> 
> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 07 - THE GUARDIANS OF THE RING**

Smitty was still in the middle of his rather one-sized conversation with the alien kids – although they looked human enough, Jack judged, having seen enough people who _looked_ human but weren’t – when an exceptionally tall man rushed into the clearing, obviously in search for the kids. At the sight of the Marines and their weapons he stopped short and his eyes went wide with shock. He held up both hands, as if showing that he was unarmed, and said something, eyes darting nervously between the soldiers and the kids. His voice was surprisingly soft, coming from such a large body: a light, pleasant tenor.

“What’s he saying?” Bates, ever-weary and always on alert, growled.

Jack looked at the alien iPod that Tosh had adjusted so that it would use the English alphabet. “He asks us not to hurt the kids. Says they were just playing.”

“In the forest, in the middle of the night?” Bates asked doubtfully.

Jack shrugged. “Boys will be boys, Sergeant,” then he returned his attention to the stranger.

The man – presumably the father of one of the kids, as they didn’t seem to be brothers – was about forty years old, with shoulder-length, wavy hair like damp straw, and a neatly trimmed beard to match. His long face was sharply featured but his blue eyes were surprisingly gentle, matching his soft voice. In his homespun clothes and leather boots he could have stepped out directly from some sword-and-sorcery movie. He clearly didn’t come from a technically advanced society.

That could be both bad news and good news. Bad because it made doubtful that the inhabitants of this planet, whoever they were, had a ZPM. Good because they couldn’t represent any serious threat for the Atlantis expedition… unless they believed in poisoned arrows and the likes.

The man now turned to Gwen – whether because she was the only woman among the strangers or for some other reason based on the rules of his society – and started to speak to her beseechingly. The word _Halling_ was repeated several times.

Gwen looked up at him nervously… and up… and up…

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” she said apologetically. 

Bates glared at her as if wondering whether she was completely nuts.

“It’s his _name_ , Missy,” he said, without needing a translation. Several years’ worth of experience at first contact situations clearly paid off.

Gwen blushed in embarrassment. “Oh, right. His name. Halling, is it? Nice to meet you, Halling,” and she gave the stranger a gap-toothed smile.

Jack glanced at the iPod and nodded as it confirmed Bates’ guess. He then stepped forth to catch the man’s – _Halling’s_ – attention, who seemed to be almost bewitched by Gwen, and pointed at himself.

“Jack Harkness,” he said; then he repeated his name and added. “Nice to meet you, Halling.”

The man’s grave face showed relief at this first step of understanding. He repeated Jack’s name, then he pointed at the boys, saying their names (which the Atlantis people already knew) and pulling the one named Jinto closer to him. There couldn’t be any more doubt which one was his son.

He kneeled down to the boy, which made them about the same height, and touched foreheads with him – apparently the local version of a hug or a handshake. He spoke to the boy with quiet emphasis, and Jack glanced at the small screen of the iPod, curios what he might be saying. The little gizmo hadn’t gathered enough data yet to give him an exact translation, but the broken half-sentences summarized clearly enough the _meaning_ of the words. Halling reminded his son that he wasn’t supposed to play in the forest after nightfall, and at the same time expressed his gratitude that the boy was safe.

After this gentle moment between father and son Halling released the boy again. He rose to his feet with a surprisingly fluid movement for someone of his height and turned to the strangers. He said something the iPod couldn’t quite get, coming up with disconnected words like _trade_ and _exchange_.

“I think he’s asking if we’re traders,” Corrigan said, peeking over Jack’s shoulder to take a look at the screen. “Considering the apparent state of development of their society, I think it’s safe to assume that most strangers they come across _would_ be traders of some sort.”

“Or intruders,” Bates said darkly, and Corrigan nodded.

“That’s likely, yeah. He was definitely frightened by our weapons.”

“Which could only mean that the enemy the Ancient hologram spoke of – or their progeny – might still be around,” Jack warned. “Stay alert, Sergeant. Doc,” he turned to Corrigan, “can you make him understand,” he nodded at Halling’s direction, “that we’re _not_ traders, just looking for a place to live? I don’t think Doctor Shaw would appreciate if we exchanged any piece of our equipment for local folk art or whatever.”

Corrigan grinned. “I think PFC Smith’s already making first steps,” he said, pointing his chin at Smitty who was happily sharing power bars with the two kids, ”but I’ll do my best.”

He began to talk to Halling, in very simple sentences, with broad gestures and a great deal of pantomime. After a while Halling nodded in understanding and answered something that the iPod translated as: _Coming. Meeting. Teyla_.

“I think he wants us to go with him,” Corrigan said.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, I think so, too. Whoever this Teyla might be.”

“The boss,” Staff Sergeant Stackhouse, a visitor of many foreign planets, suggested. “Some sort of village elder or tribal chief, I’d say.”

His best friend, Sergeant Markham, suddenly started grinning like a loon. “You know, Stacks, he might actually _take us to their leader_ ,” and he doubled over in laughter over the really bad sci-fi cliché. 

Stackhouse hit him upside the head. The others grinned, too, and tempers relaxed all around. With the exception of Bates, that is, but Bates _never_ relaxed, so that didn’t really count.

Gwen stared at them in confusion, not understanding what was so funny. Andy rolled his eyes. “You never watched old sci-fi films, Gwen?”

“No,” she replied. “Rhys and me, we preferred soaps. And _Wife Swap_. Jack, what are we gonna do now?”

“Follow Halling, what else?” Jack shrugged. “We’re here to make contact with the locals.”

Halling seemed to understand the decision because he turned and strode back into the trees without further invitation, hauling the two children after him. 

Bates turned to his people.

“Boss, Smitty, you’re on Gate duty,” he ordered. “Deal Atlantis base and let them know we’ve made first contact and that the indigenous people seem friendly.”

“Boss” Teague – the big, black guy _without_ hair – nodded and dragged Smitty with him back to the Gate. The others moved on to follow Halling, with Toussaint – the big, black guy _with_ hair – taking the rear. Congratulating himself for having found a way to keep them apart, Jack went with the latter one.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
They didn’t have to walk all too far, which made sense. If the locals used the Gate regularly – and that was a sound assumption, given that Halling wasn’t _surprised_ to find foreign people in the forest – they wouldn’t settle too far from it. Jack was a little surprised that they apparently didn’t keep a close watch on the Gate… that would’ve been the first thing to do, in his opinion.

“Perhaps they simply don’t have the manpower to watch it all the time,” Corrigan guessed as Jack breached the topic to him. “Or visitors, while not entirely uncommon, are rare enough to make a permanent watch unnecessary.”

“But he asked if we were traders,” Gwen pointed out. “They _must_ have regular contact with other people, right?”

“Yeah, but who says their trading partners would necessarily come from other planets?” Corrigan countered. "Or they might have a pre-arranged schedule and know well in advance _when_ to expect friendly visitors. I can’t really tell until I’ve seen more about their society and learned more of their language.”

“You believe you can learn their language?” Gwen, who only spoke Welsh and English, was impressed.

Corrigan shrugged. “Well, I’m not Doctor Jackson, but I speak sixteen languages already, including such tricky ones as Chinese and Swahili. Not to mention Ancient _and_ Goa’uld. The first four languages are always the hardest, they say. After that, every new language is easier to learn than the one before. If the one these people speak is based on Ancient in any way, which is a safe enough guess, all things considered, I won’t have any difficulties learning it, eventually.”

Jack was relieved to hear that. His little translation device was a useful tool, but it wouldn’t be enough in the long run. Less so as it still only worked in one direction… as far as he could tell anyway. Like all 51st century humans, he learned new languages a lot faster than people of the current era; plus, Time Agent training enhanced his natural abilities in this area. Still, having a linguist who learned fast was a good thing.

“Captain,” Corrigan’s quiet voice woke him from his thoughts. “I think we’ve arrived.”

Jack glanced around and through the line of thinning trees he could indeed see the first sights of civilization… well, sort of. Torches glittered like gold in the predawn light, giving just enough illumination to outline some kind of village. Or rather a camp. At first sight, it didn’t look very impressive.

“Oh,” Gwen said, disappointed. “They look quite primitive, don’t they?”

“No technology, no weapons, nothing we could use,” Bates added, assessing the settlement with an experienced eye. “We should go back to the Gate and try another address, sir. This is a waste of time.”

Jack watched the natives drifting between the tents with interest. They were eyeing the strangers with a mixture of caution and curiosity, but didn’t show any sing of hostility or actual fear. Perhaps the fact that it was Halling who’d brought them with him counted as a reassurance. Perhaps the man had a more important function in their society than one would think by the mere looks of him.

As someone who’d seen a wide variation of extraterrestrial lifeforms – a good part of them not even remotely humanoid – Jack wasn’t so easily fooled by the rustic appearance of these people as the others clearly were. Bates’ attitude was, unquestionably, a result of both his military _and_ SGC training. He had seen dozens, perhaps hundreds of such primitive worlds back in their home galaxy, and clearly didn’t expect this one to be any different. At the same time, he was stiffly polite as he greeted the “natives”, as it was expected from him on an off-world mission.

Jack saw things a little differently. Granted, these people were obviously nomads. Or semi-nomadic at best. Their settlement was far from permanent, just a collection of tents and huts. But those were sturdy and well made; the animals he could glimpse behind the tents, some herbivores vaguely like goats, seemed healthy and well fed. And while all people were wearing homespun clothes and leathers, those were nicely designed and could probably bear the quirks of changing weather a lot better than the Atlantis uniforms. There was the usual stench bound to be found by any semi-agrarian society, of course, but all in all, it was a well-built, well-ordered little camp.

Despite the difference of climates, the place reminded Jack of his childhood home. Just as Halling reminded him of his late father – not physically, of course, they didn’t look at all similar, but in his attitude. Jack’s parents, too, had chosen a seemingly harsh and primitive life, but that didn’t mean they’d _not_ been able to operate 51st century technology just fine if they had to. Here, too, he could see small tools on the belts of certain persons; tools that seemed to contradict the appearance of their settlement.

Somehow he had the feeling they’d find the one or other surprise here.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The hour was early, but the village elders were already gathered in Teyla Emmagan’s tent, drinking tea and discussing the day to come. All but Halling, that is, who’d gone to find Jinto and Wex before the boys would get themselves in trouble again. They were good boys, but way too adventurous for their own good. Nonetheless, they were all certain that Halling would find them and bring them back, safe and sound. Halling was the best tracker in the entire settlement, after all.

He was also their Keeper of Traditions. The one who could count back all bloodlines within their small tribe to at least twelve generations. The one who knew the history of their people back to the departure of the Ancestors. The one who could speak all the prayers and sing all the old songs.

All people of Athos were taught the language of the Ancestors and the art to read their inscriptions. But their nomadic life, the only thing that kept them as safe as it could be found in a world terrorized by the Wraith, didn’t allow them to keep written records. Those were clumsy and could have easily gotten lost when the tribe had to flee an unexpected Wraith attack. 

So they had no safer place to store knowledge than their memory. People like Halling were their fountain of that knowledge and highly respected for that. However, his presence wasn’t strictly required for the daily business, so the elders had decided not to wait for hi, ad they had a difficult decision to make.

“It will soon be time to move the settlement to the summer pastures,” Charin, the eldest by age (though not by rank) reminded the others.

Ireni, the one responsible for the safety of the herds, shook her head. “Toran warned me only yesterday that the river still flows too high,” she said. “We’d risk losing the newborn lambets, and the yearlings, too, should we not find a safe enough ford.”

“Yet the days are pressing on,” Selena argued. “The need to move becomes more urgent daily. We have remained in the same place for too long already.”

They knew she was becoming increasingly worried about her young daughter, who’d just reached the age after which she’d be seen by the Wraith as suitable prey. The monsters never attacked children or old people; just the ones who were in the full bloom of their life.

“Perhaps we could take the north route,” Ireni suggested. “If the snows have cleared, that is.” She had similar concerns about her son, although Wex would still be a bit young to be considered Wraith-bait. Still, one could never be sure with those monsters.

All eyes turned to Teyla Emmagan, who, despite being the youngest by age, was considered the eldest by rank. This it was her right – and her duty – to speak the deciding word.

“I am not certain that we should move just yet,” Teyla said slowly, thoughtfully. “The air, even here in the forest, is still cold. If we wait a few more days, though, the flood will go back considerably, and it will be warm enough, even if the lambets get soaked, to…”

Her words were interrupted by a commotion at the door of the tent, as Halling ducked inside, bringing his son and Wex with him.

“My apologies for the delay, elders,” he said with a respectful bow. “I met foreign people in the forest. They do not speak our language, although they seem to understand at least some of that which we say. I brought them with me, so that we can question them.”

“You did well,” Teyla replied, rising from her cushion. “I shall come with you and greet the strangers. I am curious who they might be.”

She followed Halling out of the tent, while Jinto and Wex were fussed over by the other elders, and slowly approached the newcomers. They were well armed and in a fashion she had not seen before. Their clothing was unusual – in fact, they all were wearing the exactly same sort of clothes, the only difference being colour variations – and she could not help but notice that they carried little to nothing to trade.

But if they were not traders, what were they doing here?

Remembering that – according to Halling – these people didn’t speak the _Traders’ Dialect_ , used by people of different planets to understand each other, Teyla stepped forth, inclined her head politely and pointed at herself.

“I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan,” she began, introducing herself formally, by rank _and_ father name, as it was proper for a tribal chief. 

She expected the only woman in the group to answer her, but that was not what happened. The woman just stared at her cluelessly and began to tug on the sleeve of one of the men. The man – tall, broad-shouldered and handsome, with very bright eyes of the colour of the summer sky – consulted some small, hand-held device, showed it to a shorter, younger man, and they talked briefly. 

Then the first man nodded, stepped forth and pointed at himself. “Jack Harkness,” he said simply.

Teyla wondered briefly whether _Harkness_ was a rank like her own – some people preferred male leaders as she knew out of personal experience – or these strangers used family names like the Genii. In any case, they seemed friendly enough, as well as armed to the teeth… such allies could prove useful.

She considered the strangers for a moment longer, curious to learn more about them. Where they’d come from, what they were doing here. That they were _not_ traders, of that she was certain. And she believed it to be in the best interest of her people to find out more.

“Each morning before dawn,” she said slowly, so that the little device that seemed to help them understand her words, could follow, “our people drink a stout tea to brace us for the coming day…” 

She hesitated, exchanging a look with Halling, who nodded in agreement. That reassured her. Halling was a good judge of character, even by people he’d just met. So she went on. “Will you join us?”

The man Jack Harkness, who seemed to be the leader of the newcomers, consulted the little device, and his face lit up with the brightest, widest white smile she’d ever seen. His answer she couldn’t understand, but his gestures were clear enough: he, the only woman of their group and the young man who could also read the device, would join her. The others – clearly subordinates of some sort – would be waiting outside.

That was proper procedure when the leaders of two different tribes met, and she appreciated him _not_ bringing his warriors. The younger man must have had a position similar to Halling’s, and the woman… Teyla couldn’t quite guess her role yet. She didn’t look like a scholar _or_ a warrior, so why was she here?

Still, Jack Harkness seemed friendly and cooperative, and Teyla was unable to keep from smiling as she led the three oft hem to the table in her tent. Her father had often warned her not to be deceived by the charm of strangers – there was always the possibility of them being in league with the Wraith – and she told herself she’d be wary. But she’d also long ago learned _not_ to waste the chance to make friends, in whatever form they came. 

In a world haunted by death, only a fool turned her back on new, potentially strong allies. And whatever else she might be, Teyla Emmagan was certainly not a fool.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Jack looked around in the tent with interest. It was surprisingly airy in the inside, the floor covered with animal skins and the tent walls decorated by pretty, hand-woven hangings that depicted hunting or shepherding scenes. In the middle stood a long, low wooden table, and several people – all women – were sitting on flat cushions around it.

The dishes standing on the table – teapots, mugs, plates and the likes – were made of decoratively patterned earthenware, and the lamp hanging from the central tent pole was made of copper and glass. There was no open fireplace in the tent, and the small, bronze heater, fed by charcoal, barely smoked. For a rustic, semi-nomadic people, the natives of the planet seemed surprisingly civilized.

From the inside of the tent Jack then turned his attention to their host, the woman called Teyla Emmagan. She was of middle height – not much taller than Gwen – but of wiry strength, and moved around with the grace of a dancer or an athlete. She was dark-skinned, although not half as dark as Bates, for example, and had a halo of curly, ink-black hair framing her fine-boned, elegantly featured face. With her dark eyes and generous mouth, she could have stepped out of some ancient Phoenician wall painting.

In other words, she was stunningly beautiful, and she also clearly had an important position among the local people. Now all Jack had to figure out was the exact nature of that position.

“Am I mistaken or was she really the only one with a surname?” he asked Corrigan, after the introductions had been made and they sat down to have tea with the elders.

“I don’t think it’s her surname,” Corrigan replied, taking a cautious sip from the sweet and spicy local tea and brightening considerably. He waved at the iPod. “This thing says the word _emmagan_ has a common root with the ancient word meaning _eldest_. So it might be a title, simply meaning that she’s the boss here.”

“All leaders seem to be female,” Gwen blurted out. “Have we landed in some sort of amazon country or what? Cos that would be, you know, cool.”

Jack rolled his eyes, but Corrigan answered before he could have.

“For a semi-nomadic society, where the men are away hunting or tending to the herds most of the year, it’s completely normal for the women to organize daily life,” he explained. “They’re the ones who stay home; they know what’s going on and what needs to be done.”

The object of their discussion cleared her throat and Jack turned to her immediately.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly, spreading his hands in an apologetic gesture. “It’s just… this is all new to us, okay?”

She might not understand the words but she clearly understood the gesture because she smiled and nodded. Still, the lack of communication was very frustrating. The iPod gave them an idea what the locals were talking about – in fact, it was getting better and better at it the _more_ they talked – but not the other way round.

“Doc, is there nothing you can do?” Jack asked Corrigan.

The linguist shrugged. “Some of their words do sound as if they were derivated from Ancient, but that’s still a long way from understanding it… not to mention speaking it,” he replied. “Let me check my vocabulary lists to see if I find more common aspects.”

He pulled a computer tablet out of his pack and switched it on, studying the long columns appearing on screen with a frown. Clearly intrigued, Halling unfolded his long body, rose from his cushion and leaned over to see what the stranger was doing. Immediately, a small cry of surprise escaped him.

“You can read the writings of the Ancestors?” he asked in slow, carefully accentuated Ancient. It was a different version from the classic language, akin to French or Spanish or Italian people trying to speak Latin, but Corrigan understood it nonetheless.

“We can read it,” he replied, also in Ancient, hoping that his pronunciation was not entirely off. “Even speak a little. Can you understand me?”

Halling nodded. “Your accent is different… older, it seems, than the one I have been taught. But yes, I can understand you well enough.”

“That’s great!” Corrigan beamed. “Can all people here speak Ancient? The language we are using now?” he clarified, seeing Halling’s confusion.

“We all can _read_ the inscriptions,” Halling answered. “Many of us can understand the _written_ language. Only the Keepers of Tradition – people like you and me – can _speak_ it.”

“Logical,” Corrigan murmured, falling back into English. “Understanding a written language is always the easier part.”

“Care to enlighten me, Doc?” Jack asked mildly.

Corrigan laughed. “Sorry, Captain, I was just… baffled for the moment. It seems that Halling here is some sort of scholar, and as such, he’s been taught to speak Ancient, the same way philologists on Earth are taught to speak Ancient Greek or Latin. He says all local people can _read_ Ancient, but they don’t speak it, as it’s not necessary for their daily life. But in any case, we’ve found a common language, and even though it won’t be easy for either of us, we’ll be able to communicate from now on.”

“Brilliant!” Jack grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll order Bates to report back to Atlantis, and then to go scout out the neighbourhood a little. Maybe they can find a place for us to settle, even if it’s only temporary.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
They continued their talks to the Athosian elders, the fact that the planet was called Athos being the first thing they’d learned. It seemed that there were many different tribes living scattered across the planet, in small groups of a hundred or two, moving from winter quarters to summer pastures, following the change of the seasons.

They were hunters and shepherds and gatherers, keeping track of rich patches of wild grain, from which they made their bread and cakes. Only larger, more settled groups did actually cultivate grain, and even these moved on after a couple of years, as if staying in one place would be too dangerous.

It turned out that they did, indeed, keep a not-too-close watch on the Stargate, which they called the Ring of the Ancestors, and there was an established pattern of which tribe would serve as the Guardians of the Ring at any given time. In this decade, the duty fell to Teyla’s people, and they’d be relieved by another tribe in two and a half local years.

Getting to learn even this much took all morning, as Halling and Corrigan had a hard time synchronising their vocabulary and their speech patterns in a dead language neither of them could call their own. Halling perhaps more so than Corrigan, but even to him, it was a sacred tongue, not meant for everyday use.

Jack tried to make friends with the elders in the meantime, who watched his attempts with wary amusement. It was a one-sided effort, with the help of the iPod, but at least it helped him to kill time until Bates and his men came back, and it helped the device to collect more data.

Bates and his Marines returned shortly before the midday meal – which, by the twenty-two-hour-day of the planet Athos, meant barely five hours after dawnbreak. If one took Earth standards as the basics of calculations, that is. In any case, the Sergeant seemed in a somewhat better mode.

“Sir, there are some ruins down in the valley that look more promising than anything these folks have to offer,” he reported to Jack. “Plenty of shelter for the entire expedition. Nice little valley for a colony, should we stuck here.”

At Jack’s sign, Corrigan translated this fort he Athosians, speaking slowly and clearly, using the simplest possible words. The news seemed to frighten the people for some reason.

“No one has lived there for many generations,” Teyla said in carefully phrased Ancient, checking her statement with a quick glance at Halling who gave a barely perceptive nod.

“Why not?” Jack asked, after the iPod had given him the translation.

“The city of the Ancestors is not safe,” a slender, dark-haired young man said in the Athosian dialect, which the iPod managed quite well by now. The irritation of the young man was evident, his tone cold and clipped.

“Oh, we can handle ourselves,” Gwen quipped, having peered over Jack’s shoulder to check the meaning of the statement.

“She says we have the means to defend our own,” Corrigan explained in Ancient. It didn’t seem to reassure the locals at all, though.

“The Wraith will come,” there was real fear in the young man’s voice, such a cold dread that it sent icy fingers up Jack’s spine. Could the Athosian be speaking of the Ancients’ terrible enemy? But what did it have to do with… ghosts?

“Ask him what he is talking about,” Jack ordered their linguist.

Corrigan nodded and turned to Halling. “Who are those Wraith?” he asked.

The Athosians stared at him in stunned silence. Clearly, they couldn’t even _imagine_ somebody asking that question. Anyone at all. Whoever those Wraith might be, they must have been pretty well-known here… and not for their agreeable nature.

It was Teyla who finally pulled herself together to cautiously address the matter.

“Forgive us,” she said in slow, carefully worded Ancient. “We are… surprised. Never have we met a people who would not know the Wraith.”

“Well, you have, now,” Corrigan told her.

She looked at him with a mix of envy and disbelief. “If the Wraith have never touched your world, you should go back there,” she said.

There was something in her tone that turned the icy chill running up Jack’s spine into a full-fledged shiver. This sounded not good, not good at all. Still, there was no way to take her advice. Not until they found a fully charged ZedPM somewhere.

Yeah, and just how likely was _that_ to happen?

“Tell her that we’d like to but we can’t, not just yet,” he said to Corrigan. “Tell her we’re in great danger where our people are now and would need a safe place to stay for a while. Tell her we won’t bother them or disturb their lives in any way, but we’re able to defend ourselves – or even them – should there be need for that.”

As fluent as he was in the Milky Way version of Ancient, it took Corrigan a while to explain things to the Athosian elders. They accepted the information without comment, but their features became clouded with uncertainty.

“Our people have long believed that the Wraith will come if we venture into the old city,” one of them, a wrinkled old woman whose name was apparently Charin, said cautiously.

“But it’s a belief we’ve not tested for decades,” Teyla pointed out. “We have _not_ gone there, yet the Wraith came nonetheless.”

A lengthy argument arose, and Jack ducked back outside, gesturing Bates and Corrigan to follow him. Gwen stayed behind, trying to follow the conversation with the help of the iPod as well as she could, a big smile plastered on her face.

“What do you think?” Jack asked his two aides.

Bates shrugged. “Sir, I don’t care what they say,” he said in a low voice, nodding towards the tent. “That city is worth a look. Not to mention the chance that there could be ZPMs there that these people don’t know or _care_ about.”

“Possibly,” Jack allowed, not liking Bates’ dismissive attitude towards the locals. “What if these Wraith _are_ the enemy that Ancient hologram lady was talking about, though?”

“All the more reason we need a defensible position, should we have to abandon Atlantis,” Bates argued, and given the circumstances, it would have been hard to disagree with him.

“True enough,” Jack admitted. “Do you think they might have placed some sort of locator device in the old city, to alarm them should anyone return there?”

Bates shrugged. “I guess it’s possible; the Goa’uld used to do it all the time. If yes, the geeks ought to find it and shut it down. Doctor Kavanagh has done so before, while off-world with SG-13.”

“Kavanagh?” Jack tried to remember which one that would be.

“One of the engineers,” Bates supplied helpfully. “Tall guy, with glasses and a ponytail. A bit of a jerk but damn good at what he does. Colonel Dixon liked him just fine. So does Doctor Simpson, although the two of them fight a lot.”

 _Now_ Jack could remember the abrasive American scientist. _He_ wouldn’t have chosen Kavanagh, were it up to him – he preferred to work with people who wasn’t such high maintenance, as a rule, although considering that he _had_ hired both Suzie and Owen, this perhaps wasn’t entirely true. In any case, the man had a good name in chemical and electrical engineering, was single _and_ had ample off-world experience (although no ATA gene), so he must have met the expedition requirements well enough.

Social graces apparently weren’t part of those requirements.

Jack looked at Corrigan. “Well, Doc, what do _you_ think? Should we take the risk?”

“I’d be all for it… in theory,” Corrigan replied slowly. “However, I’d empathically advice against _anything_ the local population doesn’t want us to do. This is _their_ planet, and we’d be in serious disadvantage, should it come to a confrontation. On the other hand, if we want to settle here, even temporarily, we’ll need a guide. Someone who can help us make sense of this foreign galaxy, to protect us from making fatal mistakes out of ignorance. I believe the Athosians would be a good choice – unless we piss them off royally.”

Bates nodded reluctantly. He’d have preferred to go to the ruined city right away, not bothering with the superstitions of the natives, but he had to admit that Corrigan did have a point.

“So what would _you_ do?” he asked.

“I’d wait for the decision of the Athosian elders,” Corrigan replied simply, “and accept whatever help they might offer with gratitude. Should they strongly oppose our settling in the old city, we should accept the compromise they might suggest and try to talk them into changing their minds later.”

Jack nodded. “That sounds reasonable. Shall we go back to them?”

Before either Bates or Corrigan could have answered, Halling ducked out of the tent and walked up to them, smiling apologetically.

“The elders ask you _not_ to go into the old city,” he said in Ancient. “Not before they have talked to _your_ elders and have shown them the reason why they are against it. But if you are truly in danger where your people live now and truly cannot go home, you are welcome to settle on Athos. We shall help you to find a good place to build your camp.”

Jack suppressed a sigh. Moving into an established Ancient city, even a ruined one, would have been better, but apparently they wouldn’t be able to do that just yet. Ah, well, it was still better than drowning on the bottom of the ocean. At least the environment suited human life and the neighbourhood was friendly.

“Tell him that we’re grateful,” he said to Corrigan. “Tell him we need to go back to the Gate and talk to our people, so that we can start evacuation immediately.”

Corrigan translated that into Ancient, and Halling, who apparently served as the voice of the elders, nodded in agreement. Then he said something that sounded like a question.

“He asks how many of us are there,” Corrigan translated, “And if we’d need tents; they apparently can lend or sell us some, I’m not really sure which one.”

“Tell him we’ll bring shelters with us,” Jack replied. “You can tell the numbers. I doubt they won’t be able to count us when the others come through the Gate, so we can as well tell the truth in advance.”

Corrigan nodded and turned back to Halling. They discussed the logistic for a while, and Jack wished he hadn’t left the iPod with Gwen; it would have enabled him to follow at least the main stream of their conversation. It was a fairly stupid feeling, listening to them and not understanding a word. He made a mental note to either refresh his Ancient or to learn the local dialect _really_ fast. He hated to be at a disadvantage like that.

Finally, they seemed to have come to some sort of agreement. Halling hurried off to organize some help with the moving, and soon he returned with a short-haired young woman who was wearing a long, split-skirted leather outfit and a crossbow-like weapon on her back, came to them. She had a vague resemblance to Jeanne D’Arc as played by actress Jean Seberg, back in 1957, although Jack doubted that many aside of himself would have memories of _that_.

“I am Anais,” she said, and Halling translated it dutifully. “I will guide your people to a place where you can build your shelters. Do you have much that will be needed to carry?”

“We do have some heavy equipment that we can move on pallets,” Corrigan replied, in Ancient, hoping that she’d at least understand it. “We can leave it near the Gate – I mean the Ring of the Ancestors – under guard if necessary, though.”

Anais seemed to understand him well enough, but she replied in her own dialect.

“Then you should leave it near the Ring at first,” she said via Halling. “You can always come back and get it when your people have settled. Shelters are more important right now.”

That was a very practical-minded suggestion, and one Jack whole-heartedly agreed with. There were the children and the elderly expedition members to be considered, after all, and it was unlikely that they’d need X-ray machines or grenade launchers just yet.

Or so he hoped.

So he sent Bates and his men back to the Gate to alert Atlantis and set everything in motion, keeping only Gwen and Corrigan with him.

“I’d still wish the choice to explore the old city eventually,” he said to Halling via Corrigan.

The gentle giant nodded slowly.

“Perhaps you will get your chance yet. Teyla is not entirely adverse. If you manage to persuade her, the others will listen,” he advised.

That was a solution Jack felt he could live with. But exploration, no matter how intriguing, had to wait. First, he had an expedition to evacuate and a colony to build, and that in a short notice.


	9. Exodus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you’ll see, I have a profoundly different view on the Athosian culture than canon does. Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.  
> The character of Lt Annalisa Lindstrom (call name "Stinger", played by Kathryn Morris) is borrowed from the 1997 TV-series _Pensacola: Wings of Gold_ , simply because I liked her a lot and thought a female chopper pilot would be cool on Atlantis.

**CHAPTER 08 - EXODUS**

It was the silence, Dr. Shaw decided, looking down from her office at the frantic activity in both the Gate room and the Control room. It felt simply… wrong. Despite the low-level conversation among the people crowded in the Gate room, waiting for the evacuation to start, Atlantis seemed way too quiet. As if everyone were holding their breaths, waiting for disaster to strike. Even the crying of Dr. McNab and Dr. Moore’s baby daughter seemed… subdued somehow. It was not _natural_.

She could see Grodin, Toshiko, Suzie, Zelenka, and at least a dozen other scientists and engineers in the Control room, hunched over computers and talking to each other. She could see the UNIT soldiers guarding the Gate, their eyes drown inexorably to its immovable presence – just like hers.

There was still hope. Sergeant Bates had checked back twice a couple of hours earlier, reporting that the indigenous people were friendly and they _might_ have found a place for the majority of the expedition to stay. Since then – nothing. And that worried her. Had they run into trouble, after all? Should she send a rescue team to look after them? What if…

Suddenly, a glyph on the Gate lit up. Then another. And another.

“Incoming wormhole!” Grodin called from the Control room. “Eddie, get it for me; I can’t leave here right now.”

Markova was already running down to the Gate room, calling back over her shoulder to the Gate technician on duty. “Activate the shield!”

A sheet of energy fizzed over the Gate, flaring white as the wormhole engaged.

Dr. Shaw stepped out onto the balcony of her office. “Do we have an IDC?”

Eddie Wong shook his head. “Not yet.”

“It’ll take a few seconds for any signal to reach us,” Markova said calmly. “Just give them some time.”

“Reading Sergeant Bates’ IDC!” Eddie Wong called only a moment later, in obvious relief.

Markova nodded. “ _Harasho_. Drop the shield.”

With an electronic hiss, it was gone, leaving the shimmering blue pool of the Gate naked before them. After a short pause, Bates stepped through the event horizon, alone.

“Everything’s in best order, Doctor Shaw,” he reported, looking up at the expedition leader, while the wormhole collapsed behind him. “We can begin with the evacuation at once. The locals are willing to let us settle on their planet. _Perhaps_ they’ll even allow us to explore the ruined city we’ve found at quite some distance from the Gate. Eventually.”

“Perhaps?” Dr. Shaw repeated. “They won’t allow it _now_?”

Bates shrugged. “They’re afraid it would bring the Wraith back.”

“Bring the _what_ back?” Captain Magambo asked with a frown.

“We’re not sure,” Bates admitted. “Communication’s tricky. Some of them can actually speak Ancient, but a different version of it, so Doctor Corrigan has his problems. Captain Harkness means the Wraith may be the enemy who beat the Ancients, though… and they seem to be just about everywhere in this galaxy, so…”

“… so whatever planet we might choose, it wouldn’t really make a difference,” Magambo finished for him.

“No, ma’am it wouldn’t. At least Athos – that’s what the planet is called – has a good climate and friendly natives. It was a lucky choice, if I may say so.”

“That’s Jack for you,” Ianto commented softly, startling Liz Shaw who hadn’t heard him following her out onto the balcony. “The famous Jack Harkness luck.”

“Let’s hope it will be enough for us all,” she answered. “Are the people ready to disembark?”

Ianto nodded. “Aside from the engineering team who’ll stay behind with Tosh, yeah. You can give the word right away.”

“I should stay here,” she murmured. “I’m a scientist myself, a fairly good one. Atlantis is my responsibility.”

Ianto shook his head. “No, ma’am. The _people_ are your responsibility. Let Markova deal with Atlantis, she’s more than capable of doing so. You’re needed with the rest of us.”

“So, who’s staying, after all?” she asked, accepting the truth in his words,

Ianto began counting down on his fingers. “Markova, of course. Toshiko. Suzie. Mickey. Doctor Kusanagi. Doctor Grodin. Doctor Zelenka. Doctor Petersen. Doctor Hays. Monsieur Trémois, from the French engineering group. Miss Jacobs. Sergeant Lenoir. Oh, and Doctor Jones, in case they’d need a medic.”

“Not Professor Taylor, though?” That surprised her. She’d thought he’d insist on staying, not trusting _anyone_ to save Atlantis but himself.

“He tried,” Ianto answered dryly, “but Markova was quite… _vocal_ in her protest. She said the only way the professor could stay with them would be dead and in a stasis chamber – but since we cannot waste our remaining power on a stasis chamber…” 

He trailed off, but Liz understood anyway. Markova wasn’t one to suffer fools – or irascible ego-maniacs – gladly, and the sooner Taylor learned _that_ , the better it would be for him.

“Very well,” she said,” let’s do this as long as we still can.” She leaned forward a little and called down into the Gate room. “Captain Magambo, Captain Price, you’re free to disembark. Initiate evacuation procedure Number Three.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
At her word, the controlled chaos broke lose in the Control room again. To the expedition members’ credit, they fell back into routine amazingly well. Everyone knew that Number 3 was the plan in case they’d arrive in a wide open space, so they grabbed their respective pallets and moved on, just like during the drills.

It had been decided that they’d drag _everything_ through the Stargate, in case the failsafe mechanism couldn’t be triggered in time. They _needed_ the supplies if they wanted to survive on an alien planet. That included the little gateships, too, which could be used for a dozen different purposes, from transportation through survey to temporary shelter. At least the families with children won’t have to house in tents.

Fortunately, Grodin had figured out how to lower the ships from the shuttle hangar directly into the Gate room and how to dial the Gate with the help of their built-in DHDs. One of them, temporarily labelled as Gateship One, was already hovering in front of the open gate, with Lt. Annalisa Lindstrom in the pilot’s seat and the children of the expedition in the passenger compartment, with as much sensitive equipment as they could stuff in beside them. Dr. Suresh senior had been asked to keep an eye one everything, as the parents were needed to help haul stuff through the Gate.

As Lindstrom was currently one of the only four pilots with an ATA gene, she was to get over to Athos first, land the ship and then come back and take another one through the Gate. As none of the scientist who remained behind had any piloting skill whatsoever, there was no reason leave the vessels on Atlantis.

“We must train the other gene carriers how to fly these ships,” Captain Magambo commented, while herding the people through the wormhole at an only slightly slower speed than by their coming to Atlantis. The more they could get through during one opening sequence, the less invaluable energy would they use up.

Bates nodded. “Markham of my squad has the gene; and he’s good with tech. I think he’ll have a good pilot. What about your men?”

“Jenkins has a licence already, but he’s not the best,” Magambo admitted. “Harris and Grey have the gene, too; perhaps they can be taught. And Captain Harkness is an experienced pilot himself. Other than that, we’ll have to train civilians, I’m afraid.”

“A scary perspective,” Bates muttered.

The two of them exchanged a look of deep understanding, and Bates noticed for the first time that she was actually a handsome woman. That was a dangerous observation, and he scolded himself mentally for it at once. There might exist a different set of rules here than back at the SGC – their military commander being married to another man would be quite the eye-opener for anyone – but fraternization rules were fraternization rules, and Michael Eugene Bates was a guy who took the rules _very_ seriously, even if nobody else did.

Besides, he was pretty sure that Magambo would break his nose, should he, in a sudden attack of insanity, make a pass at her. Right before having him court-martialled and shot on the spot.

Things had suddenly become a lot more complicated, and that filled him with dread. He only hoped that living on Athos, having to protect an entire colony of hapless civilians would provide him with enough outlets for his pent-up energy. Like survey duty, far, far away from base camp. Too much spare time only ever got him in trouble. 

*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The appearance of the gateship caused unexpected panic among the Athosians who’d gathered to greet the new settlers of their planet. Some of the women grabbed their small children and ran towards the tree line like a herd of fleeing animals – only a lot more quietly. It was obvious for Jack that these people were used to doing this and had learned to understand the value of silence. 

Which also had the advantage that his only slightly raised voice would reach the fleeing ones easily.

“Wait!” he called after them, trying to cobble together what little Ancient he knew. “My people! No danger!”

The Athosians stopped, hesitating between curiosity and stark terror. Clearly, they’d seen ships coming through the Gate before… and didn’t have good memories about that. Jack glanced at the iPod, but it didn’t tell him anything useful. Only that the Athosians found the gateship _different_. 

Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he couldn’t decide.

The gateship landed at enough distance from the Gate for the expedition members to come through with their pallets unhindered. Then its back hatch was lowered, and a colourful bunch of children, aged between two and thirteen, swarmed out, looking around in awe. Seeing them, the Athosians relaxed visibly. In their eyes, having children apparently meant good people.

Dr. Suresh herded the kids to a place where there wouldn’t be underfoot – surprisingly enough, they listened to him without arguing – before hurrying back to help with the pallets. The uneven forest floor made it difficult to move them at any reasonable speed, so more hands were needed. Jack ran back to help himself, so did Corrigan and, after a moment of hesitation, the Athosians joined them, eyeing the huge containers with vague suspicion.

Shutting the ship’s systems down, Lt. Lindstrom jogged to the Gate to help as well.

“Gateship One secured, sir,” she called over to Jack. “We’re supposed to bring over the rest of them if we can, after the evacuation is finished. They’re being packed with sensitive cargo as we speak, and Jenkins and Hamayouni are prepared to fly two of them. That way, we’ll have at least three ships over here, even if the wormhole couldn’t be re-established, due to energy problems.”

“I hope they manage to hit the Gate in the right angle,” Jack muttered, grabbing a pallet that stuck in the dirt and yanking it free.

“Jenkins isn’t _that_ bad,” Lindstrom assured him, “and Hamayouni served at the Gulf as a combat pilot. He’s _good_.”

“What?” Jack frowned. “I thought he was a field medic or an emergency surgeon or whatnot.”

“That, too,” Lindstrom helped Dr. Katie Brown, who was staggering under the weight of her oversized backpack, to get away from the Gate without falling over. “Most of us have at least two different skills. With so few people, we can’t afford to be one-sided.”

“What’s _you_ other skill?” Jack asked, teasingly. “I bet you’re a good cook.”

“I’m passable enough,” Lindstrom replied. “But actually, I’m an ordained military priest.”

She was small, slender, and looked like a malnourished boy with her short-cropped, straw blond hair. It took Jack a moment to realize that she _wasn’t_ joking. She laughed at his baffled face.

“Hey, it’s a time-honoured practice to have at least one priest on the front,” she said. “It’s good for morale; and not everyone is as obsessed with psychotherapy as you Americans are.”

“Yeah, we tend to be like that,” Jack, who’d never seen a therapist in his life and wasn’t even truly American, agreed. “Let’s hope Doctor Heightmeyer has no objections against the competition.”

Lindstrom shrugged. “I don’t really see her as competition. After all, she’s not qualified to baptize, marry… or _bury_ people. I am.”

With that, she turned back to the Gate to help Dr. Moore with the container housing the botanists’ lab equipment.

*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *** They _almost_ got everyone through in those thirty-eight minutes before the wormhole collapsed. The forest floor had slowed them down considerably, though, so the last group didn’t make it in time. Considering that said last group contained not only Dr. Shaw, who refused to leave ship before everyone would have gotten through, but also Ianto, who stayed on her side till the last moment, Jack was understandably not happy about that. What it they wouldn’t have enough power left to reopen the Gate? 

He _was_ one of the trained pilots who could go back to fetch the remaining gateships, of course – hell, he was about the only one who’d flown an alien spaceship before! – but it was a tough decision to make. He was _needed_ here, especially that there was the chance that the expedition leader would get stuck on the other side. From the leading triumvirate of administration, science and military, he was the only one actually _here_. He could not abandon these people, even if staying meant he might not see Ianto for a very long time. Perhaps never again. 

“You go,” he said to Lindstrom, Jenkins and Hamayouni with a weary sigh. “I can’t afford to leave right now.” 

For a moment it seemed as if Lindstrom would argue with him; she was probably a romantic soul. But then military training won over, and she saluted. 

“Yes, _sir_!” she said crisply, before turning to the other pilots. “Well, guys, you’ve heard the Captain. Off we go!” 

Jenkins, a tall, hazel-eyed, baby-faced young UNIT soldier, seemed a little doubtful about the whole thing – he’d almost crash-landed the first gateship already – but Hamayouni just nodded stoically and walked up to the Gate. He was a head shorter and at least ten years older than Jenkins; lean, olive-skinned, with short, springy black hair and obsidian eyes - the perfect cliché of the strong, silent type. He’d seen a lot, lost a lot and wasn’t easily shaken as a result. 

The three of them went through the Gate as if it were a routine SGC mission, and there was a long, tense silence afterwards. Jack put on his best poker face and tried _not_ to panic. Obviously, he made a lousy job of it; or why would everyone who knew him well enough, from Gwen through Owen down even to PC Andy, give him compassionate looks? 

Finally, the Gate whooshed open again. The event horizon barely settled when the three gateships swung through it elegantly. After them came the last group of Atlantis, dragging their pallets with them: Gate technicians, medical personnel, and after everyone else, carrying a backpack of the size of a walk-in closet, came Ianto Jones, as collected as ever, looking around with mild curiosity. The Gate shut down in the moment he was setting foot on Athos. 

Jack’s stance sagged in relief. This time they’d been lucky. But he really, honestly hoped not to face a chance like this any time soon. He withstood the urge – barely – to sweep Ianto off his feet and kiss him senseless before the eyes of everyone. Instead, he walked up to Dr. Shaw and took her backpack. 

“Welcome to Athos, Liz,” he said. “I’m glad you made it through all right.” 

“So am I,” she replied with a tired smile. “Now, will you introduce me to the leader of this settlement?” 

“Actually, it’s _leaders_ , in plural,” Jack told her. “It seems that some kind of council of elders has the deciding word among them. Come with me; I’m sure they’ll be happy to meet you.” 

*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Teyla Emmagan had watched the arrival of the new settlers with Halling at her side. It had been fortunate that the strangers happened to bring their own Keeper of Tradition; the young man and Halling were at least able to understand each other, using the sacred language of the Ancestors. It wasn’t an ideal solution, of course; the old language lacked many modern words that would be necessary to discuss anything but the most basic things. Life had changed considerably since the departure of the Ancestors. But it was a start. 

The young man whose given name was apparently Eric – it turned out that the strangers did use family names indeed – had promised to learn the Athosian dialect as soon as he could. He was clearly good with languages, and he’d also offered to teach those who wanted to learn the one all foreigners spoke. He’d explained that they belonged to several different tribes, each with its own dialect, but they’d chosen the one called English for daily use, so that they could understand each other. 

It must have been something like the Traders Dialect, then. She had no doubt they’d be able to learn it. Athosians picked up new languages very quickly. 

But what amazed her most was seeing the older people. With the Wraith everywhere and the risks of a nomadic lifestyle, Athosians rarely got the chance to grow old. Charin was one of the very few fortunate ones. The presence of the middle-aged and the elderly among the newcomers was the best proof that they’d told the truth: their world had never been touched by the Wraith. 

She could not comprehend why they’d leave such a world willingly. 

“Perhaps they had other dangers, almost as bad, where they come from,” Halling said thoughtfully. “Perhaps they fled in the hope of finding a new, safer place, not knowing that they would flee towards even greater danger.” 

“They must have come from very far away, though,” she answered. “I have never heard of a world untouched by the Wraith. Nor has anyone I have ever talked to on other planets.” 

“Neither have I,” Halling admitted. “I am looking forward to learn more about them. They seem… different from anyone I have ever met on my travels.” 

Teyla nodded. “We must warn them first, though,” she said. “It has been three years since the last culling. The Wraith _will_ come, sooner or later, and they need to be ready.” 

“They seem to be a people used to settled life,” Halling commented. “They need many… _things_ to survive. They will never be able to live the way we do. Perhaps the city of the Ancestors would truly be the best solution for them.” 

“But what if the legends are true?” Teyla asked in concern. “What if returning there _will_ bring the Wraith back? We have barely recovered from the last culling as it is – my mother, your wife, Ireni’s husband… we have not rearranged all the family groups yet. A Wraith attack, right now, would be fatal.” 

“The more reason for you to join one of the clans and hand down your gift to the next generation,” Halling chided gently. “Ireni and I would gladly welcome you in our household, and so would Selena and Thanos. Marta and Toran would greatly benefit from a more mature partner. We all have lost spouses in the last culling and need to enlarge the families for the safety of our children. Or if you want to build a household of your own, Lambert would be an excellent choice. He and Erwan have been looking for a female spouse for a while. You cannot remain alone until the years of fertility flow by you. Not now when our numbers have become so dangerously low and your gift so rare.” 

Teyla sighed. “I know that, my friend. I know you’re right. It is just… it is so _hard_ …” 

Halling nodded in understanding. “I know you have lost your heart to Kaanan,” he said gently. “But you know as well as I do that Bríghil would never share him with you. And she is the elder wife; without her consent, he cannot ask you. I speak to you as the Keeper of the tribe _and_ as a friend: stop wasting your life and give some thought your future.” 

Teyla knew he was right. She had already waited too long, well beyond the age Athosian women usually chose their household. She had already missed several opportunities to give the tribe children. Children who might have inherited her gift; a gift as vital for their survival as it was rare. 

She also knew he was right about the other thing as well. Bríghil was one of those women who did not like competition. She would accept further male spouses, but no female ones, unless they were considerably younger and thus she could boss them around. She certainly wouldn’t accept the leader of the tribe as a co-wife. And since she had given the clan four children already, by Kaanan and a co-husband who’d died in a hunting accident last summer, she could afford to be choosy. 

Still, Teyla didn’t like her choices to be so limited. 

“Perhaps the arrival of these people will be beneficial for us, after all,” she said. “We have been in need of some fresh blood for a while.” 

“True,” Halling allowed, “but they are a foreign people whose customs we do not know. Perhaps their traditions will not allow clan marriages. There are people like that.” 

“They seem more open-minded to me than, say, the Genii,” Teyla said, allowing herself a hint of hope. 

“Their leader, this Jack Harkness, _is_ open-minded,” Halling corrected. “Which might be the reason why he was sent as their envoy. We cannot tell just yet what the others are like. What they will or will not accept.” 

“If they wish to survive here, they will have to accept our reality,” Teyla answered, with a slight edge in her voice. 

Halling nodded. “True again. Which is why they need to be warned about the Wraith properly,” he paused, considering the possibilities. “As we still have a language barrier between us, I think you should take them to the caves.” 

*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The next couple of days were spent with hectic, albeit organized activity. The exiled expedition members worked hard on building a temporary home. The place the Athosians had selected for them was fairly close to both the Gate and their own settlement; only a ten-minute walk from both. That provided both parties the necessary privacy _and_ the easy access to the Gate – something that seemed to be an important factor in the Pegasus galaxy. 

The UNIT soldiers and the US Marines, with the help of the French _Troupes de Marines_ , managed to raise the large, military-issue tents within the first day. Which, considering how short the twenty-two-hour Athosian day seemed to those who were used to Earth standard, was quite the feat. But they were experienced veterans, used to serve on the frontier. They could deal with just about everything. Or so Jack hoped. 

There was little chance for privacy, except for the families who’d been assigned the gateships as shelter. One of the tents served as field kitchen and mess hall, mess duty being rotated equally between soldiers and geeks, as there was little to explore just yet. Another one housed the communal showers. A third one – the largest of all – had been selected for sensitive lab equipment and other machinery they weren’t even planning to unpack before they knew for certain whether they’d be able to return to Atlantis at all. The rest of the tents were sleeping quarters; large enough to house twenty people each, sleeping in parallel rows on narrow cots, separated by gender. The latrines had been dug a little further away, situated so that the wind wouldn’t carry the stench back to the camp. 

Luxury was something entirely different, and Jack caught himself wondering whether Tosh and the others were better off on Atlantis, despite the very real threat of being crushed or drowning. Hell, even his little hole under the Hub had more comfort! But under the circumstances this was their best chance, and so far everyone was too glad to be alive to complain much. 

Everyone but Owen and Professor Taylor, that is, neither of which was really surprising. At least Owen was just his obnoxious self, muttering about how much he hated the countryside – even _without_ in-bred cannibals, he added with a dark look in Jack’s direction – and how much he missed his penthouse. And his favourite pub. And the girls who regularly visited said pub. And so on. 

Professor Taylor, on the other hand, was throwing hissy fits about the conditions, about not being able to do the all-important research he’d been sent here for in the first place, demanding to be given a real bed in one of the gateships and generally making a pest out of himself and the life of the others to hell. 

Finally Jack lost his patience and promised to throw him through the Gate onto an uninhabited planet and leave him there. That finally shut the man up. 

“I hope you were serious about the uninhabited planet part,” Captain Price muttered angrily. “A few more days with this bloke and he won’t have to worry about these Wraith things anymore, whatever they are.” 

Jack grinned. He’d befriended Marion Price during the SGC-training already. The blonde engineer turned out a lot less cold and haughty than she’d seemed at first; instead, she proved to be thorough, competent, and had an extremely dry sense of humour. 

“Careful, Captain,” he warned. “Remember, you’re here to protect the geeks, not to kill them. _That_ would be against the rules.” 

“Screw the rules,” she replied succinctly. “I’m a soldier and an engineer, not a babysitter. It’s not my fault that some people never grow up.” 

“Well, at least the _other_ children seem to enjoy themselves,” Jack laughed, watching fondly the colourful mix of Earth _and_ Athosian children sitting in a circle around Dr. Lindsay, the expedition’s other linguist, having an English lesson. Considering that the parents of most kids were _not_ from English-speaking countries, the Earth children had those lessons just as necessary as the Athosian ones. 

They also seemed to become friends very quickly. Jinto, Wex and thirteen-year-old Mikey Naseband were already as thick as thieves. Selena’s daughter, Miri, had taken Shanti Suresh under her wings, and the Oktharev boys, Sasha and Grisha, nine and eleven at age, had apparently found the right company as well. Like all curious kids, neither of them let himself be hindered by the lack of a common language, and the Athosian children, at least, picked up English with astonishing speed. 

The adults were only slightly slower, as they had plenty of other things to do. But they were making progress as well. The other way round, it was a slow process, though. 

“Your data storage device is a marvel,” Corrigan enthused. “It has already provided me with a vocabulary of several thousand words, as well as basic grammar and syntax. I’m currently figuring out a method to teach Athosian – and the Traders’ Dialect, which seems to be the shared language of all Pegasus galaxy humans – to our people faster.” 

“Does this mean we won’t have to begin the learning process from square one on every new planet we might visit?” Jack asked, pleasantly surprised. 

Corrigan nodded. “Exactly. We’ll be able to communicate with dozens of people that the Athosians already know. And if we take this… this alien iPod with us, we can also check what the locals are talking among each other in their own tongue; things the probably don’t want to reveal us right away.” 

“How many different people are we talking about?” Captain Price asked. 

Corrigan grinned. “Halling rattled down more than four dozen Gate addresses off the top of his head, half of which planets the Athosians trade with regularly.” 

“And all planets are terrorised by these Wraith guys?” Jack asked. 

“All of them, it seems,” Corrigan answered. “Which reminds me: Teyla has asked to meet us – you, me, Doctor Shaw and Ianto – in the Athosian village. She wants to show us something. Something important.” 

“That was all she would be willing to tell?” Jack didn’t like it. 

“She said something about… _caves_ ,” Corrigan admitted. 

Jack gave Marion Price a questioning look. The blonde engineer shrugged. 

“Go,” she said. “There’s little to do right now. Erisa and I will hold the fort in your absence; and perhaps now you’re gonna get some answers.” 

*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Dr. Shaw and Ianto were already waiting for them when they reached the Athosian village, carrying only their water flasks and, in Liz’ case, a walking stick that made it easier for her to move around on the uneven forest floor. It was a beautifully crafted piece, given her by one of the Athosian woodworkers on the second day after their arrival – the locals had taken a liking to her at once and tried to make her life as comfortable as possible. 

She looked a bit anxious about the trip, which, considering her age and the fact that she’d spent the recent decades in various laboratories, was understandable. Ianto looked completely unfazed as always, although Jack knew that living in the great outdoors still made him uncomfortable. He didn’t have any better memories of the countryside than Owen… or any of them, to be honest. 

Teyla joined them shortly, wearing a long leather coat that was split in the back, allowing her to move around freely. 

“Ready?” she asked with an enigmatic smile. In English. Her vocabulary wasn’t very large yet, but she’d already picked up a lot of everyday phrases. 

“It depends,” Liz Shaw answered warily. “How far is it?” 

Teyla needed a moment to understand the question; then her eyes softened. 

“Not very far,” she promised in her somewhat broken English; like all Athosians, she seemed to have the utmost respect for old people. “I go slowly.” 

Just then, Gwen barrelled through the trees. She’d been trying to make friends with the Athosian women all day and was tired of it, to tell the truth. Domestic work had never been part of her interests, and these people here seemed to do nothing else. 

“Jack, where are you going?” she asked. 

“Teyla wants to show us something,” Jack explained. “Some caves. We don’t know what it is. Not yet anyway.” 

“Ooh!” Gwen’s eyes widened in excitement. “Can I go with you? Please, Jack, I want to see the caves, too!” 

Jack looked at Teyla uncertainly. The Athosian leader shrugged. 

“If you be _quiet_ ,” she said in broken English, but with unmistakable emphasis. 

Gwen had the mother wit to shut up – _this_ time – and so they set off for the caves, wherever those might be. Soon, it turned out that Teyla’s idea of _not very far_ differed a little from that of ordinary human beings, spoiled by Earth standards. It was quite the hike from the village, and the forest floor dense and foot-tangling, which made it even more difficult for them, especially for Dr Shaw, to make any headway. Soon, she had to lean on her walking stick heavily, even though Jack could see that Teyla was deliberately slowing her pace. Still, the old woman was out of breath as she struggled up the hill after Teyla with Ianto’s help. 

Fortunately, they didn’t have to go much farther. As soon as they reached the top of the hill, a short, natural wall of rock blocked their way. 

“In there?” Jack asked with a frown. 

Teyla nodded and held on, her eyes searching the craggy rock face as if she were searching old, half-forgotten memories. 

“I have not come here for many years,” she said quietly, in her own language that the iPod dutifully translated for the others. “But I am certain that the entrance must be here.” 

Jack nodded to Ianto to keep supporting Dr Shaw, who really seemed exhausted, and stepped up to Teyla. The sand-coloured stone reminded him of the sunlit rocks of his childhood home, but unlike he smooth stone blocks on the Boeshane Peninsula, this was broken in sharp angles, and vines and other forest life spread across much of the escarpment. A narrow, barely visible path caught his eye as it sliced through the dense undergrowth… could that be the entrance? 

“What about that?” Jack asked, pointing at the path. Teyla looked in the direction and nodded, clearly relieved. 

“Come,” she said, confident once again, and led them along the trail. 

They followed her, and after a short while, they came to a long, narrow doorway that had been cut into the rock, by the sight of it a very long time ago. It seemed to have been a natural cave once that had been widened and squared off, now hidden behind the lush vegetation. Teyla pushed her way past, inviting them to join her with a look behind her shoulder as she stepped through the entrance and disappeared in the dark. 

Jack hesitated for a moment. Had he been alone, he’d have gone on without a second thought; after all, what could have happened to _him_? But now he was responsible for the safety of the others – not just the ones with him right now, but for that of the whole expedition. 

“There could be literally anything inside that cave,” he murmured. “Would we really go in without back-up? Isn’t that tactically unwise?” 

“Perhaps it is,” Dr. Shaw said after a moment of consideration. “In the end, it all comes down to trust, though. _Do_ you trust Teyla?” 

“Yes, I do,” Jack answered almost immediately. “My gut feeling tells me that she and her people are trustworthy. If we want to make friends here, we’d better start with a little trust.” 

“Besides," Ianto added quietly, "It’s all give and take. If we trust her, she’ll be more willing to trust us.” 

“Very well, then,” Dr. Shaw said. “Let us show some trust, shall we?" 

“But _I’ll_ go first,” Jack declared. “I can afford it.” 

She nodded in agreement, and Jack, taking a deep breath and keeping his weapon at the ready, headed into the cave after Teyla. Ianto gestured to Corrigan. 

“Go with Doctor Shaw,” he said. “Gwen and I will take the rear." 

“We will?” Gwen asked, a little disappointed. 

“Sure”, Ianto replied calmly, as if he’d be about to serve coffee. “Isn’t that why we’re here?” 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you’ll see, I have a profoundly different view on the Athosian culture than canon does. Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.   
> We never actually learned what kind of creatures destroyed Jack’s childhood home, or how it happened. So I’ve taken some poetic licence here.

**CHAPTER 09 - IN THE CAVES**

After a narrow little passageway they came into what must have been a huge cave, by the way the space suddenly widened around them with the air moving freely, cold and fresh. It was more a feeling than anything else, as it was pitch black in there. Jack started feeling uncomfortable. He never liked dark places, and despite the dimensions he could feel around them, he found the place suffocating.

“Teyla?” he asked uncertainly.

“I much play here as child,” she replied in broken English; her voice came from a short distance. Then she switched back to her own tongue, and the iPod in Corrigan’s hand came dutifully alive, translating her words. “I believe this is where the survivors hid from the Wraith during the last great attack.”

The tiny screen gave just enough illumination for Jack to switch on the torchlight on his P90. It cast harsh shadows about the cavernous room, bouncing off rough-hewn stone and dust and getting lost in the shadowy height of a ceiling too far above their heads to be even visible. The air was surprisingly fresh; perhaps this was a carst cave, cut by some ancient river that had long since changed its path. Now it was dry, but some of the natural air ducts must have remained intact.

Still, it wasn’t a very welcoming place – even less so than the military tents. Jack still had no idea who these Wraith could be, but if people had been willing to hide in this dank cave just to avoid being discovered by them, they must have been a terrible enemy indeed.

“One can almost taste the desperation in the air,” Liz Shaw commented softly, as if reading his thoughts. “I wish there would be a little more light. This place gives me the shivers.”

Apparently, Teyla had understood the word _light_ , if nothing else, because she looked around, as if seeking for something. She found it soon enough: an old torch, fastened to the rocky wall with some sort of metal ring that didn’t show the slightest sign of the years gone by. Before Ianto could have produced his lighter – he still smoked the one or other cigarette sometimes, despite Jack’s efforts, who didn’t like the taste of nicotine on his lips, to break him out of the habit – Teyla pulled out something that looked like a penlight. With a flick of her thumb, a scarlet laser beam zapped out and onto the torch, lighting it instantly.

“Impressive,” Ianto commented. “So much better than a zippo.”

Teyla offered him a smile. “We trade the fire-starters with the Olesians for animal skins,” she explained. “They chose a settled life and technology long ago. A choice that makes their lives more comfortable… but also more vulnerable to a Wraith attack.”

“You have mentioned these Wraith many times by now, you and the others,” Dr. Shaw said, after Corrigan had handed her the iPod. “But you never told us what – or who – they are. Can you tell us more about them? _Details_ would be useful.”

Corrigan translated the question into Ancient, as it was still too complex for her English, and Teyla nodded. “We come to show you who they are,” she said in English. 

Then she took the torch from the wall and led them deeper into the caves.

“Whoa!” Corrigan breathed as the light of the torch illuminated the rock wall in front of them. “This sure as hell beats the paintings of Altamira. Or Lascaux.”

Jack hurried up to see what caught the anthropologist’s breath – and was stunned by the sight himself. The wall was indeed covered with primitive pictures that would more than match the famous cave paintings found in France and Spain. They were dynamic, colourful, and spoke of rough yet definite artistic talent. 

They also seemed to have been made by different people, and during a long time span. A difference between the various styles and techniques could easily be made. Generations of unknown artists must have worked on this.

Only that – unlike their counterparts on Earth – the images didn’t depict hunting scenes, animals or any other aspect of daily life. They showed the brutal history of a hunted people – and considering their apparent age, that history must have been a very long one.

“The paintings in the caves are extensive,” Teyla murmured, bringing the light of the torch closer to the pictures. “No-one has ever gone far enough to study them all.”

“And they’re old, too,” Corrigan commented, switching the iPod into recording mode to store the images for his colleague to study. “Based on these scans, they must date back thousands of years.”

He repeated it in Ancient for Teyla, who nodded in agreement, adding that many generations of Athosians used to live in these caves in the primitive past of her people.

 _Thousands of years?_ Jack followed Ianto to the wall, where the young Welshman was studying a detailed image depicting the annihilation of a vast city. There were people running for their lives, and what looked like some kind of energy weapon sweeping the city itself.

“This represents the destruction of the Ancient city you don’t want us to visit?” he asked.

Teyla consulted Corrigan in Ancient, then she shook her head. “No; the city of the Ancestors was never this big. Besides, this painting far predates their departure from our world.”

“Then what?” Liz Shaw asked. “Have your forefathers witnessed this on a different world? Or did someone know in advance this was going to happen?”

This time the consultation took considerably more time.

“Some of our forefathers did visit other worlds, back, when the Ancestors ruled many planets,” Teyla finally answered,” and I doubt not that they saw terrible things, which they then depicted here, as a warning for the coming generations. I have come to believe, however, that this happens again and again.”

“The destruction?” Jack tried to clarify things. Teyla nodded.

“Yes. The Wraith allow our kind to grow in number, and when that number reaches a certain point, they return to cull their human herd.”

“Human _herd_? _Culling_?” Ianto seemed like someone who’d get violently sick any moment. Small wonder, considering that he’d been very nearly butchered and eaten by cannibals - who had considered him nothing but meat - barely a year ago.

“Hey,” Jack patted his back encouragingly, “don’t lose it now. Deep, even breaths!”

Ianto nodded shakily and obeyed. After a few moments, his pallor became a little healthier, and he calmed down again.

“Sorry,” he muttered. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jack pointed out; then he looked at the others. “I think there can be no doubt that these Wraith _are_ the terribly enemy the Ancient hologram has mentioned.”

“No,” Dr. Shaw agreed. “The thought that they’re still out there, after so many years, is… unsettling.”

Teyla consulted with Corrigan again, then she nodded. “Yes, that is true. The Wraith triumphed over the Ancestors in a long, horrible war, and the Ancestors vanished without a trace. The Wraith, however, are still here. Sometimes a few hundred years will pass before they awaken again, sometimes even longer… But the end is always the same.”

Jack eyed the pictures of dying men and women, and all of a sudden he felt so very tired. The hopes they’d had when coming to the Pegasus galaxy, the excitement over a great adventure, they were all gone with the wind.

“And there’s no-where to go?” he asked, although he feared he knew the answer already. If there _would_ be a safe place, the Athosians would have already fled there.

This time Teyla didn’t wait for the translation, intuition having filled the gaps in her vocabulary.

“We have visited many, many worlds,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I know of none untouched by the Wraith,” she paused, waiting for the iPod to translate, then added in a different, more tense tone. “The last great holocaust was five generations ago, but still they return in smaller numbers, to remind us of their power. My mother was taken three years ago.”

Stunned silence followed her word. No-one knew what to say. Telling her that they were sorry would have been incredibly cheap, as she stood in their middle, at once sad, proud and resilient. They couldn’t help but feel great respect for her.

“What a horrible way to live!” Gwen finally mumbled, her eyes wide with fear and her lower lip trembling. “It isn’t a life at all… it’s just survival… barely…”

Teyla shrugged. “It is what it is – what we have known since the Keepers’ memory can reach back. We adapt. We move our hunting camp around. We try to teach our children not to live in fear… but it is hard.”

 _Hard_ didn’t even begin to describe it. Jack knew that from personal experience. He knew what it meant to live with the certain knowledge of a holocaust hovering above their heads, from day to day, from year to year. What it meant for the children to grow up knowing that their entire settlement could be wiped out at any time.

“When I was a child, we lived on a remote colony,” he spoke slowly, searching centuries-old memories that were almost painfully vivid and sharp nonetheless. “It was a simple and harsh life that my parents had chosen consciously. They wanted to keep out of the wars and struggles taking place elsewhere. We’d heard about a hostile race that migrated from world to world like locusts, murdering and tormenting people in unspeakable manners for years, but we never believed they would come after us, too. Our colony was so remote, so insignificant, so off the well-trodden paths. We thought they wouldn’t even notice us. We were wrong.”

“What happened?” Teyla asked, after Corrigan had translated for her.

“One day, they came, and we were unprepared,” Jack replied simply. “I lost my entire family that day.”

“How old were you?” Ianto asked quietly, laying a comforting hand upon his. Jack made a mirthless grimace.

“Twelve… perhaps more… I can’t even remember. Weird, ain’t it? I know my father died there – I _saw_ him die – and my mother probably too. But I have no idea what happened to my little brother. Was he killed, was he taken? Later, when I was with the Time Agency, I searched after him for years. I never found him; not even a hint about his fate.”

“So, this Captain Hart lied when he said he’d found him?” Gwen asked.

Jack shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“So you’ve just given up on your brother?” Gwen demanded. “Jack, how could you do that? That poor boy is probably still enslaved by those monsters!”

“That poor boy, if he’s indeed still alive, is a grown man by now,” Jack replied tiredly. “What would you want me to do, Gwen? I couldn’t find him when I still had the resources of the Time Agency at my disposal – what could I do _now_ , limited by the means of contemporary Earth?”

“You never told me anything about your brother,” Gwen said accusingly. “Or your parents. Or where you came from.”

“No, I haven’t, Jack answered, thoroughly annoyed by her now. “It’s none of your business.”

“I’m _making_ it my business,” Gwen returned stubbornly.

Jack felt a killer headache starting to build behind his eyes. Fortunately, before he could have said anything he’d regret later, Ianto intervened, smoothly but efficiently as always.

“No, you’re _not_ ,” he told Gwen. “If it were anyone’s business, it would be mine. _I am_ Jack’s… partner, remember?”

“He still hasn’t told you anything, has he?” Gwen asked smugly.

“No,” Ianto admitted. “And I never asked. I knew once he felt up to it, he’d speak about it.”

“Or not,” Gwen said nastily.

“Or not,” Ianto agreed. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to know every little detail about everything he’s seen or done. Some memories are just too painful to be relived. So leave Jack alone, will you? He doesn’t need your nagging about something he can’t change.”

There was such a forbidding finality in his tone that even Gwen, who didn’t back off easily, found it better to stop arguing. She huffled in disappointment and stomped off to explore the cave on her own.

Jack closed his eyes. “Thanks, Ianto.”

“Headache?” Ianto asked quietly, stopping behind him and massaging his tense neck muscles. 

Jack relaxed under his fingers with a ragged sigh. “You’re a godsend, Ianto Jones.”

“Just doing my job, sir,” Ianto said with an intimate little smile.

Teyla had been listening to them with growing confusion. Now that the argument seemed to have been ended, she turned to Corrigan, and the two had a lengthy discussion in Ancient, to which Corrigan also consulted the iPod.

“This is interesting,” he finally said. “I’ve been guessing something like that since we moved here from Atlantis, but now it’s confirmed: the Athosians live in clan marriages.”

“Which means… what exactly?” Dr. Shaw asked.

“It means that every family consists of two or more co-husbands and co-wives,” Corrigan explained. “The custom has been developed for the protection of the children, it seems. This way, even if one or more of the parents are taken by the Wraith, the kids still can grow up in a family.”

“But how can they prevent inbreeding and the degeneration of the gene pool?” Dr. Shaw’s medical interest was definitely piqued.

Another lengthy discussion followed, Teyla and Corrigan clearly warming up to the topic, which wasn’t really surprising. Corrigan was an anthropologist, not just a linguist, and what he was learning about Athosian lifestyle clearly fascinated him.

“They’ve got an interesting system,” he then explained. “It seems that each individual can count back his or her ancestors to ten or twelve generations, on both their parents’ sides. And then there are people like Halling. They’re called _the Keeper of Tradition_ and are obviously living archives. They know the bloodlines of each clan within their tribe by heart, which clan has intermarried with which and for how long, who are just foster siblings and who are related by blood… that sort of thing. There are several such people in each tribe, and each of them starts teaching his or her potential follower in early childhood, in case they’d be taken by the Wraith.”

“But these people are clearly literate,” Dr. Shaw said, surprised. “Why would they need to learn all this by heart?”

“They can _read_ , that’s true,” Corrigan replied, after having consulted with Teyla, “But they don’t _write_ , as a rule. Written records can be lost or destroyed. And since everyone knows their own bloodline, the genetic history of the tribe can be reconstructed with reasonably little effort, even if all Keepers would get taken at once. Which, according to Teyla, has never happened to them, so far.”

“I assume such people are specially protected,” Dr. Shaw said.

“All are protected,” Teyla said promptly in English, not needing the translation this time. “All the same. All very important. Only old ones special.”

“That makes sense,” Corrigan commented. “Where the population is so small in numbers, each individual counts. And the experiences of those who’ve managed to live long enough to grow old would be very valuable.”

Teyla nodded, apparently getting the gist of the statement. The speed which she picked up English with – arguably not the most logical language of mankind – was simply amazing. Unless she was mildly telepathic, of course.

Jack asked about that with the help of Corrigan, and Teyla shook her head.

“No mind-reading,” she replied in English, “though I have the Gift.”

They looked at her in obvious confusion, and she switched back to her own dialect to explain.

“Some of us can sense the Wraith coming,” she said. “That gives us warning. It is a rare gift, and not a pleasant one; it feels like a hot knife slicing through one’s brain. But it is useful; it helps us and the others to prevent being taken… _if_ we are fast enough.”

“You have mentioned _being taken_ many times by now,” Jack said. “What do the Wraith do with the people they take? Torture them? Kill them for sport? _Eat_ them?”

Teyla waited for Corrigan to translate, just to be sure she understood the question correctly. Then she nodded and answered in her mother tongue.

“They _feed_ on people,” she explained. “They have a… an _organ_ in their palm, through which they can suck life out of people by mere touch. The… the _victim_ grows old and dies as a dried-out husk within minutes.”

“Oh, that must be a bad joke!” Corrigan exclaimed, checking what the iPod if he’d heard that right. “Are we talking about _vampires_ here?”

“Well, if the Ancients had encountered the Wraith in this galaxy, it’s not unlikely that vampire legends are based on their memories,” Ianto commented. “They wouldn’t be the first weird aliens mankind has met. I wonder about the quick aging part, though. How do they do _that_?”

“Actually, that’s the least baffling part of it,” Dr. Shaw replied. “If that… that _feeding organ_ enables them to absorb bio-energy directly from the victim, the entropy effect would be accelerated by magnitudes and death would be imminent. It would also mean that such a creature would be able to regenerate from near-fatal injuries, if properly fed.”

“They do heal very fast,” Teyla agreed, after Corrigan had translated for her. “The best way to kill them is to cut their heads off – but it is hard to get close enough to do that, without being killed.”

“Cremation should work, too,” Ianto added thoughtfully. “Any energy weapon at a high enough setting. Disintegrating them with a _zat_ gun, for example. Or vaporizing them with the Jamolean lance.”

“Or blowing their heads off with our big gun,” Jack continued, feeling just a little bit bloodthirsty, because really, what else would such parasitic creatures deserve? “It’s only a question of caliber, ain’t it? The bigger the bullet, the better the results.”

Teyla looked from one at another in slight confusion. They were talking way too fast for her, but she believed to have heard something important.

“You get weapons that can kill Wraith?” she asked.

“Some,” Jack replied. “Not as many as we’d like, but yeah; the ones we _do_ have should work like a charm.”

“Then perhaps you can truly afford to take a look at the city of the Ancestors, Teyla said thoughtfully. “Can your weapons destroy machines that fly in the air?”

“Some of them can,” Jack answered, thinking of the grenade launchers Captain Magambo had insisted to bring with them with gratitude. “Do these Wraith not come through the Stargate… I mean, through the Ring of the Ancestors?” he corrected himself.

“They do,” Teyla answered. “They come by small ships that fit through the Ring and are very fast. We call them _Darts_ , as they look like the points of our hunting weapons. They collect their prey, kill many of the rest to terrorize them, and then vanish through the Ring again.”

“They must have a mothership somewhere out there,” Jack was thinking loudly. “Ships that are small enough to pass through the Gate can’t be capable of interstellar travel.”

“They have huge ships they call _Hives_ with thousands of Wraith on board,” Teyla explained. “We do not know how many such ships exist, but it is said that between great wars, most of them are asleep. Otherwise there would be no living people left on our worlds.”

“So, if we manage to sneak aboard such a Hive Ship and place a big enough bomb in the middle of the vital systems, we could kill thousands of those monsters in their sleep?” Jack asked. It sounded brutal, but right now, he didn’t feel above genocide, if that meant to save an entire galaxy full of unprotected humans from vampiric aliens.

Teyla thought about the question for a while. She understood the concept, and frankly, she had no moral objections – why should she? The Wraith didn’t have any, either. She just couldn’t imagine the _means_ that would enable mere humans to do so.

“I cannot see how that would be possible,” she finally said.

“Let that be our concern… and hopefully none too soon,” Jack answered. “We need a safe place to settle first. Could you talk the other elders into letting us at least check out the old city in the valley? Our people can’t live out their lives in tents.”

“I do wish to help you,” Teyla said thoughtfully. “But you must understand us, too. We cannot risk alerting the Wraith to your presence. You have got weapons, technology… they would not simply cull our world if they discovered that. They would see you as a threat and kill you… and _us_ with you, as an example for other people. It is known to have happened before, on other planets.”

“I understand the risk,” Jack said, and he really did. Perhaps he was the only one in the entire expedition who truly did, due to his past. “But try to understand _us_. We ain’t a people of hunters or farmers. We can’t live the same way you do, not in the long run. The Ancient city might give us the means to grow our own food, the way we’re used to do it; to be independent and self-supporting, instead of becoming a burden for you.”

“Besides,” Ianto added, “we have people among us who can disable the devices left behind to alert the Wraith. They have done so on countless other worlds, back home.”

“I thought you did not know the Wraith back on your home planet,” Teyla said, getting a little suspicious again.

“We didn’t,” Ianto assured. “But there were other enemies, ruthless and cruel ones, against whom we had to fight with all that we had. Sometimes it wasn’t even nearly enough. We came here in the hope that the Ancients – the ones you call the Ancestors – might have left something behind, some weapon perhaps, that could help us. And now…”

“And now you are trapped here, with the Wraith,” Teyla finished for him.

Ianto shrugged. “We always knew there might not be a way back. Still, we had to try. We still may succeed yet… if we find the right energy source.”

“I cannot assume that I understand everything you have told me,” Teyla said slowly. “Your language has too many words that are meaningless for me. But Halling and I have realized for quite some time that our way of life would not suit you. Very well; I shall speak to the elders on your behalf. But if letting you into the old city turns out to be a horrible mistake, you will be expected to help protect my people.”

“Of course,” Jack said; then he gave her his widest, patented Jack Harkness grin. “Would you like to accompany us when we make the survey run?”

Teyla grinned back at him. “I thought you would never ask.”

Everyone laughed with them, and they were about to get up and leave the caves when Jack realized that Gwen was missing.

“God help that woman,” he swore under his breath. “Why must she _always_ run off on her own?”

“Perhaps cos you always let her get away with everything,” Ianto commented dryly.

Jack gave him a dirty look. That had been a controversial topic between them ever since Jack had come back from his trip with the Doctor.

“We must seek after her immediately,” Teyla said, as soon as she understood the problem. These caves branch out a _very_ long way under the hills. When she turns the wrong way, we might not find her in time.”

“That’s what the lifesign detector is for,” Jack looked at Ianto. “I assume you’ve got one on your person, Mr. Jones?”

“When have I gone on a field trip unprepared, _sir_?” Ianto asked back with his best receptionist smile and produced the required instrument from his vest pocket. “Shall we?”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
They found Gwen in the fourth cave, where she was studying the paintings, not even aware of the fact that they’d been looking for her. Around her neck she was wearing a piece of jewellery neither of them had seen before: a dainty necklace with a beautifully crafted locket on it, made of some sort of unknown alloy.

Well, unknown to them but not to Teyla, obviously, who gasped softly at the sigh of it.

“I lost this when I was a young girl,” she said in delight. “How did you find it?”

“Caught my eye, half-buried in the dirt. Must have reflected the sunlight. “Gwen reluctantly took off the necklace and let it swing from her finger. “I guess you want it back…”

Teyla nodded, her eyes shining. “It was a gift from my father. I believed I would never see it again.”

Jack took the necklace from Gwen and held it out to Teyla in a gentlemanlike manner. “May I…?”

She laughed as she turned around, brushing the ends of her short hair upwards with her hand to allow him to fasten the clasp. Jack did as it was expected of him, but he took his sweet time to admire the elegant sweep of her neck.

“Some things never change,” Gwen muttered angrily. In Welsh.

Ianto shrugged. “Jack is Jack,” he replied. “You can no more change him than you could change the weather.”

“And that doesn’t bother you a bit, does it?” Gwen’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Actually… no, it doesn’t,” Ianto replied with a faint smile; then he looked at Jack. “Well, since Gwen’s been found and you’ve had your gentlemanly moment, perhaps we can return to the camp now?”

Jack grinned at him and saluted. “Your wish is my command, Mr Jones!”

“I certainly hope so,” Ianto answered dryly. “Move!”

Corrigan snorted and Liz Shaw shook her head in tolerant amusement.

“Newlyweds,” she commented. “They’re always the same. God, was I ever _that_ young?”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
An hour before sunset Halling came to Gateship #3, which served as Dr. Shaw’s temporary quarters _and_ her office. He brought Corrigan with him as communications support; the linguist certainly was in much demand in these days.

“The Elders would like to speak with you again, Doctor Shaw,” he said. “ _And_ with Captain Harkness, if he is available.”

“Is this about our request concerning the Ancient city?” Liz Shaw asked.

“Among other things,” Halling replied with a grave nod. In English. Clearly, Teyla wasn’t he only one who picked up languages very quickly.

“Very well,” Liz Shaw switched off the computer tablet activated her headset instead. “Ianto, do you know where Jack is?”

“Always,” Ianto replied simply. “Do you need him?”

“The Athosian Elders do,” Liz said. “They’ve called for a meeting.”

“Interesting,” Ianto commented. “I’ll send him to you at once.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your plans for the evening,” Liz apologized.

“You haven’t,” Ianto assured her dryly. “Unless you consider standing atop a gateship and brooding as _evening plans_. I’ll be grateful if you could snap him out of it; it’s no fun at all.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Liz promised and broke the connection.

Jack arrived within minutes indeed, and the two of them followed Halling to the Athosian village. The Elders had gathered in Teyla’s tent again and where – what else? – drinking tea. As every time he saw them doing that, Jack felt a sudden, uncontrollable craving for coffee. For _Ianto’s_ coffee. Which was just not doable at the moment. Not as long as they hadn’t found a reliable power source to which Ianto could have connected his shiny new coffee machine. So everyone was living off caffeine pills, and even those were strictly rationed… and it showed.

Withdrawal was a bitch.

Liz and Jack accepted the offered cushions and the tea in the circle of the Elders. Corrigan, like the young Athosian man called Toran, was seated outside the circle but close enough to hear whatever was being said. Jack had the iPod, as Corrigan understood a lot from the Athosian dialect without help already.

They drank the tea in silence, everyone gathering their thoughts for the upcoming discussion. It was Charin who finally broke the silence; as the oldest member, it was her privilege to speak first.

“You have asked our permission to dwell in the abandoned city of the Ancestors,” she said. “We are of two minds about that request. Before we would open a discussion about it, however, let me warn you: moving there would not necessarily do you any good. Legend says that only the Ancestors could use all the machines and tools that can be found in the city. To all others, it would remain dead.”

Liz and Jack exchanged significant looks. Was it possible that nobody in the _entire_ Athosian population had the gene?

“That is not entirely true, “Liz said, choosing her words very carefully. “Some of us have the… the ability to make their technology work. It’s a gift of the Ancestors; a gift that some of us carry in their blood. Literally.”

“That is impossible,” Ireni protested, after Corrigan had translated everything into Ancient. “The tools of the Ancestors recognize them and would _not_ work for anyone else.”

“And yet some of us can fly their ships,” Jack reminded her.

“We have been wondering about _that_ ,” Halling murmured.

“As I said; some of us have it in their blood,” Liz Shaw said. “The world we originally come from is the same one the Ancients called home. The one where they returned after the great war against the Wraith was lost.”

The Athosian Elders fell into shocked silence after they’d understood the meaning of her words.

“You are of the blood of the _Ancestors_?” Selena asked, clearly stunned.

“Many years and many generations have gone by since they returned to our world,” Liz Shaw explained. “Not a single one of them has remained by now. But they’ve mingled with _our_ ancestors, and some of us still carry a gift in our blood. A gift that enables us to use their technology. I’m not one of those, unfortunately, but Jack here is. So are several others from our group.”

The Elders exchanged meaningful looks. They’d clearly discussed the topic among themselves in advance, and perhaps could carry on a nonverbal communication for quite some time. Slowly, deliberately, all eyes turned to Teyla, and the others nodded, one by one. Flashing one of her half-bemused, half-amused smiles, Teyla nodded, too, and then she looked at the three newcomers.

“Since you are practically the offspring of the Ancestors, we do not have the right to deny you access to your inheritance,” she said. “But if we are to take such a great risk on your behalf, you will have to do something for us as well.”


	11. The City on the Edge of Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sergeant Hagiwara is one of the nameless extras occasionally seen in Atlantis’ Gate room.  
> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is also meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 10 - THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER**

“They want us to do _what_ for them?” Professor Taylor asked in shock.

“Nothing from _you_ , obviously,” Jack snapped at him, irritated. “You aren’t a gene carrier, after all. It all comes down to the ones of us who _are_.”

“They want children!” Dr Chandra Suresh realized. As a geneticist of long experience, he was understandably the first to figure it out. “Children from gene carriers, so that the ATA gene would be introduced into their population as well.”

“Which is understandable, from where they’re standing,” Captain Magambo added. “They might not _build_ technology of their own, but they can use it, if it’s offered them. Having the ATA gene would be a serious advantage for them.”

“Perhaps,” Professor Taylor allowed. “But have you considered that the Ancients might have had a reason for _not_ handing down the gene to the primitives of this galaxy? What if they didn’t want to leave behind any progeny that could be forced by the Wraith to use Ancient technology to _their_ advantage?”

“How do you know that’s what happened?” Captain Price asked. “We’ve only met the Athosians so far. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of inhabited planets in this galaxy… who says we won't find any gene carriers later on?”

“If there were any, the Athosians would have already found them,” Professor Taylor argued.

Dr. Julia Simpson shook her head. “Not necessarily. I was there when Doctor Grodin found the Atlantis database; it has hundreds of Gate addresses listed. Several hundred planets with a Stargate – with potential gene carriers. The Athosians know four, perhaps five dozen of them.”

“There is another aspect of this,” Sevarion Kirkitadze, the expedition’s lawyer, a short, powerful, hawk-faced man in his early fifties, said. “As Captain Magambo has pointed out, having the ATA gene is a serious advantage. One, that – as far as we know – only our people have in this galaxy. Are we willing to give up our advantage? To share it with other people?”

“Yes, that is something we must consider very carefully,” Dr. Shaw agreed. “What do you think Jack? Would it be wise to do so? You seem to have your doubts.”

“My problem isn’t giving up a tactical advantage,” Jack replied grimly. “My problem is giving up a _child_. I’ve already left a daughter behind, on Earth. I’m not ready to lose another one.”

“Then don’t… _sir_ ,” Private Jenkins hurriedly corrected himself. “ _I’ll_ do it.”

“ _You_?” Captain Price stared at the young man in surprise.

Jenkins shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time that I… erm… _donated_. I used to be a registered donor at a fertility clinic. It ain’t a big deal.”

“As long as you manage to forget that you might have half a dozen kids growing up without a father, no, it ain’t,” Jack returned.

“Before we get carried away with moral considerations, we should figure out if Athosians and humans are genetically compatible at all,” Mohinder Suresh, a name-worthy geneticist on his own right, intervened.

Captain Price gave him a surprised look. “Why shouldn’t we? The Athosians are human, aren’t they?”

“They _look_ human enough,” the younger geneticist corrected, “but we know nothing about their genetic make-up yet. There are different possibilities, most of which don’t look very promising. If we’re the same _genus_ but not the same _species_ , we can have children with the Athosians, but these would be all infertile – like mules, coming from horses and donkeys. A useful subspecies, but genetically seen a failure. A dead end in the evolutionary process.”

“I don’t think _that_ would be what the Athosians wanted,” Ianto commented softly. “What if we’re the same species, though?”

“There still could be significant differences in our genetic sequencing,” Mohinder answered. “Differences big enough to result in physically deformed or mentally disabled progeny. Or both. Which couldn’t be the Athosians’ intent, either.”

“Is there any way to know these things for sure?” Mikka Toivannen, a straw-blond Finnish engineer with a shockingly red beard (both completely natural) asked.

“Mappin’ the Athosian genome would be the first step,” Carson Beckett replied with a heavy sigh. “But that would take bloody _months_ ; perhaps even years, if they’re different enough.”

“We don’t have months, let alone _years_!” Professor Taylor protested. “We _need_ to search that city, now, while Atlantis is still intact. There could be a ZedPM among those ruins, or lots of drones for the chair, or…”

“It doesn’t matter what _might_ be there,” Liz Shaw said sharply. “We won’t do anything against the Athosians’ wishes. This is still their planet; and their right to choose the risks they’re willing to take.”

“It ain’t _your_ decision!” Professor Taylor snapped. “As the ranking scientist here…”

“…you can shut up before I, as the ranking military officer here, shoot you on the spot,” Jack retorted, and Professor Taylor had the self-protective instinct to back off. Jack then turned to Liz Shaw. “Look, what about simply telling the Athosians the truth? They’re a reasonable people. I’m sure they wouldn’t do anything that might endanger their children.”

“Let’s hope so,” Liz Shaw sighed. “I’ll speak with the Elders again. If at least one of you gene carriers is willing to… erm… _donate_ , at least in theory, we might get our chance with the city, after all.”

“I must admit that I’m still not entirely comfortable with the idea – not even in theory,” Captain Price said.

“Neither am I,” Liz Shaw admitted. “But we need to have _something_ we can offer the Athosians. I only hope it will be enough.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
In the end, it proved to be easier than they’d have expected. As Jack had pointed out, the Athosians _were_ a reasonable people – and not entirely ignorant about the problems of interracial breeding.

“We have tried to find suitable spouses on other worlds,” a young blonde woman by the name of Anika, who was their village healer or something like that, explained with Corrigan’s help. “Sometimes it turned out good and gave the tribe healthy, gifted children. At other times there were either no children at all, or they were born misshapen or feeble-minded. Your healers could find out in advance what to expect?”

“Some of them can,” Liz Shaw answered. “That bearded older man spent his whole life with such research, and his son now follows the same path. They say they can do this, but it would take time. And they’d have to do some tests.”

“What kind of tests?” Charin asked warily. Clearly, the word had a bad sound to her.

“They’d take some of your blood, examine it and compare it with ours,” Liz Shaw explained. “Then they’ll make a detailed list about the similarities and the differences, and calculate the possible risks of cross-breeding between our people.”

The Elders looked at Anika, who shrugged. “Sounds harmless enough.”

“It _is_ harmless,” Liz Shaw assured. “Before coming here, we used to have regular blood tests, to make sure we won’t take any illnesses here, against which you might not have natural immunity. I assume further tests would be necessary to find out what bacteria or viruses live here _we_ have no immunity against.”

“We need to make sure we wannae harm each other in any way,” Beckett added. He’d been invited along to this meeting by Dr. Shaw, both as the chief medical officer of the expedition _and_ the one with perhaps the strongest ATA gene. “I wannae lie to you, love; this will be a lot of work before we can figure out whether it’s safe for us to cross-breed or not.”

“We understand that,” Teyla said after a brief consultation with the other Elders. “We do not want to endanger our future children in the womb, either. But if you are willing, should it prove safe, then _we_ are willing to take the risk of allowing you to search the old city. Even settle there, if it suits your needs.”

“For that, we are grateful,” Dr. Shaw said. “Once we can unpack our medical equipment, we shall start with the blood tests and the research. Perhaps we’ll even find something in the old city that helps us with it. The Ancients had a medical technology that far surpasses ours.”

“But you cannot move to the old city right away,” Halling warned. “There may be traps, set by the Ancestors to keep invaders out… _or_ by the Wraith to capture those who dare to venture into the city.”

“We won’t just blunder in,” Liz Shaw replied. “We shall send a small survey team with one of the ships we brought from… from the planet we had to leave,” they still hadn’t told the Athosians that they’d come from Atlantis. It was by no means sure the locals would even know about the city-ship, and if they did, it would have been foolhardy to reveal its location before they had control over the systems. “A team of engineers and technicians and people who can use Ancient technology, to look for traps and disable them before the rest of us would move in.”

“I would like to go with them,” Teyla declared. It wasn’t a _request_ , and they all knew it, even if it was phrased like one. She had every right to watch them.

“So would I,” Halling added. “Should there be any messages from the Ancestors, I must see it and add it to the tradition.”

Realizing that Halling was probably the closest thing the Athosians had to a priest, Dr. Shaw agreed. And thus it was decided that they will send the survey team to the ruined city first thing in the morning.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The little gateship was about the coolest thing Jack had ever flown in his entire life – and he _had_ flown his fair share of cool vessels before being stranded on 19th century Earth. Including his little Chulan spaceship _and_ the TARDIS. All right, he’d never actually _flown_ the TARDIS, although he had sometimes helped the Doctor piloting her… with mixed results. The TARDIS was a capricious lady with a will of her own – or malfunctioning, depending on one’s point of view. Even the Doctor had a hard time to make her cooperate.

But _this_ little darling… Jack walked around the gateship and patted its outer hull lovingly. It was small and compact, almost like a car, and as soon as he touched it, it came to life with flickering lights and a low hum, as if it wanted to greet him.

He knew it was the gene – the ship reacted the same way to Ianto, after all – and yet he couldn’t stop grinning in delight. Automobile geeks would probably react similarly if offered a beautiful, fully functional old-timer for free.

Ianto was watching him with tolerant amusement. “Should I feel jealous?” he asked.

Jack laughed. “Oh, c’mon, Ianto, look at this baby! Ain’t she just _perfect_? Designed to go through the Gate, reacting to our _thoughts_?”

“Oh, it’s a _she_ now, isn’t it?” Ianto shook his head, smiling. “Well, as long as it isn’t another guy, just a spaceship, I reckon I’m safe enough. But Jack, I’m coming with you.”

“Ianto…” Jack began, but Ianto cut off his protest.

“It’s not up to debate, Jack. I’m coming for Doctor Shaw and to record things we may find. The others will be busy checking out the city or establishing a defence perimeter. _Someone_ ought to make detailed records. And I’m the best person to do it; you know that.”

That was very true, of course, so Jack grudgingly backed off. The survey team had gathered in the meantime. It was a fairly colourful mix, consisting of two engineers (doctors Simpson and Kavanagh), one systems technician (Sergeant Jenny Hagiwara), three Marines (Stackhouse, Markham and Yamato), Doctor Beckett, Doctor Corrigan and the two Athosian Elders.

Some of the team members, like Beckett and Markham, had the gene, while the others had not. It was a conscious choice; they needed people who could activate Ancient technology, but they had to take into consideration that some Wraith traps, would specifically react to Ancient physiology and such to the gene as well.

“Everybody ready to leave?” Jack asked brightly. “Well, let’s board our ship, shall we?”

They were a little crowded in the passenger section, especially with the large toolkits of the two engineers underfoot, but it was bearable. Jack ordered Markham to take the co-pilot’s seat next to him – the boy _had_ the gene, after all, and needed to learn how to fly the ship. Even if he was still green behind the ears.

“So, Jamie, do you remember which direction the valley lies from the Athosian village?” he asked, trying to imagine their surroundings.

Before Markham could have answered, a three-dimensional holomap popped up in the air, right in front of their eyes. Both their camp and the Athosian village were clearly recognizable from the bird’s-eye perspective. So was the small circle of the Stargate and, in a certain distance, the valley with the ruined city.

“Wow!” Markham breathed in eye, his eyes wide and round like those of a little boy in a toy shop. “That’s _way_ cool…”

Jack had to admit that the boy was right. He tried _not_ to drool himself, but it was hard to hold back.

“Well,” he said, “why don’t we take a closer look, now that there can’t be any questions about the direction?”

As if by magic, the little ship lifted off the ground, levitated just above the trees for a moment, and then turned in a gentle curve into the direction where, still hidden from the human eye, the valley with the Ancient city lay.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The distance was not a really big one, at least not by shuttle; Jack still found it strange that the Ancients would build their city so far from the Stargate. That would make it harder to flee to other planets in case of an attack.

“Correct, sir; but it would also give them time to _prepare_ for an attack, assuming they had some sort of Gate alarm installed,” Stackhouse, who’d come forth to the cockpit so that he could watch the landscape through the front window, pointed out.

“Good tactical thinking, Sergeant.” Jack gave the young Staff Sergeant an appreciating look.

Stackhouse shrugged. “I used to have my own squad in Iraq, sir, and also led a few off-world missions at the SGC on my own whenever Gene was down with some bug. I’m used to this.”

 _Gene_ , that was Master Sergeant Michael Eugene Bates, who – Jack knew already – was on first-name basis with exactly two people in the expedition: Stackhouse himself and his second-in-command, McKinney. Everyone else quaked in their boots before him… well, except the two UNIT captains. But even those treated him with respect.

“We’ll need people with command experience once we’ve gotten settled,” Jack said. “Do you feel up to lead one of the survey teams on a permanent basis? Since you’re the only people with off-world experience, we can’t afford the luxury to leave the Marine squad intact. I think we should split it between you and Sergeant Bates and fill in the numbers with newbies.”

“That could work,” Stackhouse agreed. “If you trust me with this, sir, I’m game. I’d like to have Jamie with me, though,” he nodded towards Markham. “I promised his Mom to keep an eye on him.”

“Hey!” Markham protested indignantly. “I don’t need a babysitter!”

“You’re not getting one,” Stackhouse countered. “You’re getting _me_ , because I promised – and because it makes me sleep better. So suck up and shut up, you don’t have a vote in this.”

Jack smiled as he listened to their good-natured banter. Markham was suffering from the baby face syndrome; not only was he the youngest Marine in the entire squad, he’d also practically grown up with Stackhouse, who – although only some two years older – was the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) big brother to him: always practical, always concerned about his friend’s safety, and ready to intervene when he saw it necessary. 

Jack had seen Markham during firearm training, during unarmed combat training _and_ working with alien technology and knew that Jamie was more than capable of protecting himself. But again, so were the members of Jack’s team, and that fact didn’t make Jack worry about them any less. Which only proved that Stackhouse indeed had what it took to be a good leader. A bit over-concerned perhaps, but that came from his youth. He’d grow into the task well enough.

“All right,” he said. “You can have him. But try not to smother him completely. You’re worse than a mother hen.”

Stackhouse grinned. “I can’t help it, sir. I was the youngest in the family, with both my Dad and my brother in the Corps. I _need_ someone of my own to smother. By the way,” he added, peering through the windshield with interest, “I’d say we’ve arrived.”

As if given a sign, all others jumped to their feet and tried to storm the cockpit, so that they could finally see something, and for a moment Jack got ridiculously nervous about the ship tipping forward and crashing, although, rationally, he knew how unlikely _that_ would be. It still could have caused problems in the narrow cockpit, had Private Yamato not planted himself firmly in the open doorway that led to the passenger compartment.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “but the pilots need _room_ to fly this vessel.”

The others backed off at once, because while Yamato might look slim and short, it was a know fact that he’d taken down _Teal’c_ in unarmed combat, and that repeatedly. So it was better to obey if he gave an order. Other than his deadly skills with or without an actual weapon, he was a friendly and sociable guy, and people did their best to keep him that way.

Teyla and Halling watched the little scene with interest. They didn’t need to be told to realize that this slender young man was most likely an excellent warrior. Even though he didn’t have the gift to operate the technology of the Ancestors, he’d be an excellent addition to any clan that needed a new spouse.

Jack landed the gateship in what he thought would be safe distance from the city and sent out the Marines and Sergeant Hagiwara to secure the entranceway to the valley. Doctor Kavanagh went with them, carrying an Ancient sensor that had been calibrated to detect any surveillance devices left by the Wraith or any booby traps left by the Ancients themselves. Or so they hoped. Markham, the only one with the gene among them, took the rear and followed them from considerable distance, lest he would set off something by accident.

The others climbed atop the gateship, from where they could get a sneak peek at that which lay before them. Even from this far, it was a spectacular sight.

The city went on all along the valley, as far as they could tell; a roofless maze of crumbled walls and shattered pillars, all made of local stone, once perhaps white but now grey and withered with age. There were interconnected rooms, large, empty halls, fountains and pools that had long dried out, and open courts that once might have been filled with well-ordered gardens but were now overgrown with vegetation. It was dead and empty and abandoned, but – strangely enough – it didn’t look in any way damaged, save for the wear of time and weather.

“There _was_ no battle,” Jack realized with a jolt. “There are no bomb crates or any sign of violent destruction. Could it be that the Wraith never found this place?”

“If they haven’t, why didn’t the Ancients hide out in here?” Corrigan argued. “Why would they go to the caves?”

“It wasn’t the Ancients who hid in the caves,” Jack reminded him. “Those were the forefathers of the Athosians.”

“Still, the Wraith mustae known about the existence of the city,” Beckett said. “How come they havnae destroyed it?”

“Perhaps they had no reason for it,” Ianto replied thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s been abandoned by the Ancients well before the end of the war. Then it would have served the Wraith’s purposes much better as a trap.”

The Athosians asked Corrigan for translation; then Halling nodded.

“The old tales tell us that the Ancients abandoned this city long before the Great War was lost,” he said. “When the Wraith came, our people tried to flee to the city, but whenever someone ventured there, it led to a new attack. Finally, we have given up on the city. No-one has come here for uncounted generations… not that we would know of it, that is.”

“Let’s hope Doctor Kavanagh can find the Wraith surveillance devices,” Jack commented grimly. The last thing he wanted was to lure those monsters to Athos again; and that at a time when his own people were utterly vulnerable, still living in tents.

Dr. Simpson patted his arm encouragingly. “Think positively,” he said. “Kavanagh can be a jerk sometimes, but he’s damn good at what he does.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
As it turned out, she’d been right. Less than an hour later the survey team returned, Kavanagh bringing half a dozen small devices with him.

“I found these strategically placed in a semi-circle of a diameter of about a hundred metres right at the entrance of the valley,” he explained. “They appear to be comm devices of some sort, capable of sending a one-way signal through hyperspace. I’ve short-circuited them with the help of a portable EM-emitter; they ought to be harmless now.”

“ _Ought_ to be?” Jack repeated with a frown. Kavanagh shrugged.

“Well, they’re _not_ emitting any energy signature right now. But this is a technology I’ve never seen before, so I can’t give you absolute guarantees.”

“Can they recharge themselves?” Jack asked.

“I’ve honestly no idea,” Kavanagh admitted. “The best solution would be to destroy them, of course, but I’m not sure P90s could do the trick.”

“Then we’ll need something with a bit more juice,” Jack looked at Ianto. “Have you brought the Jamolean lance?”

“Of course,” Ianto replied matter-of-factly, as if Jack had asked for a handkerchief, and presented the required weapon.

Jack took it from him, thrust the weapon's barrel against one of the devices, and then pulled the trigger. The exothermic reaction produced by the lance melted the Wraith device into a puddle of useless plastic and metal.

“Well,” Jack eyed the molten remains with satisfaction, “we can thereby officially reassure that it works on inorganic material just as well,” he pushed the lance into Ianto’s hand to finish off the other devices, then turned back to Kavanagh. “Have you found anything else that seemed suspicious, Doc?”

The pony-tailed scientist shook his head. “Nothing so far. I’d suggest that gene carriers hold back from touching any unknown piece of equipment before Simpson or I have tested them, though.”

“All right,” Jack looked at Ianto, Markham and Beckett. “You heard the man: no feeling up any cool toys before they’re declared safe.”

“You havnae got to warn _me_ off, Captain,” Beckett pulled a face. “I wouldnae even get close to Ancient tech if the scientists didnae drag me to help them all the time.”

“That’s because we need your gene in order to do our jobs,” Simpson returned. "You’re such a wet blanket when it comes to technology, Carson, it’s not even funny!”

“Well, I’m a bloody doctor, not some stage magician!” Beckett snapped.

“Play nice, children,” Jack intervened before they could have gotten into a real fight. “We’ve got an Ancient city to explore – let’s do it!”

The others were eager to do just that. Stackhouse took point, and with him went Doctor Kavanagh, scanning the area relentlessly, to spot any other possible _surprises_ left by the Wraith. Julia Simpson was only a step or so behind them, busy with her own scanner.

“Captain,” she said to Jack after they’d reached the entrance of the valley, “I’m picking up energy signatures ahead of us.”

“What kind of energy signatures?” Jack asked.

“I’m not sure,” Simpson consulted her instruments with a frown. “They’re scattered and erratic. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Let me see it,” Kavanagh turned around, but Simpson snapped at him in annoyance.

“Do your own job, mister! I’m capable of doing mine, without your constant interference, thank you very much!”

Kavanagh opened his mouth to answer something but changed his mind in a sudden bout of self-preservation and stomped away, muttering darkly under his breath. Jack suppressed a grin. The relationship between Simpson and Kavanagh – calling it a _love affair_ would have been exaggerated – had been the worst kept secret of the SGC already. Considering their spectacular – and very vocal – public fights whenever they happened to disagree about _any_ scientific matter (which happened _at least_ once a day), the wildest speculations about their private life were running circles among the rest of the expedition. Jack for his part was fairly sure they had a somewhat bland sex life. After all, they usually worked until they collapsed over their laptops, and worked out any possible differences through their geek spats. There was no way they’d have the strength for sexual acrobatics afterwards.

“So, the energy signature,” Jack pressed.

“Well, it’s definitely Ancient, not that _that_ would be surprising,” Simpson replied, all professional again. “The problem is, I can’t localize its exact source. It comes from _somewhere_ within the city, but that’s the closest thing I can tell you, I’m sorry.”

She seemed to see this as a personal failure. Her face reddened with anger so much that her freckles had become invisible. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, not even remotely pretty, but very sharp and practical-minded, and Jack had learned during SCG training to appreciate her insights and endurance.

“Don’t take it personally,” he said. “Such things happen. Let’s simply follow the general direction of the readings and see what we’ll find.”

Simpson nodded curtly and stomped after Kavanagh. Sergeant Hagiwara and Yamato caught up with them, wielding their own scanners. They _had_ to check every yard of walkway before them, to spot any possible Wraith devices that might react to Ancient DNA, before the gene carriers could enter.

They’d found nothing so far, and when they’d checked out a square tower that happened to have a balcony and declared it safe, both structurally and technology-wise, Jack decided to climb up to the balcony and take a look at the ruins from there.

“Perhaps we can make a preliminary map, using the holographic binoculars and your records,” he said to Ianto, while the two scientists and Sergeant Hagiwara were trying to figure out what the console in the single room at the ground level might have been for, and the soldiers looked for anything that could make the place blow up.

Ianto nodded noncommittally and followed him across the open court that led to the entrance of the tower. He didn’t seem the least surprised that Jack had apparently managed to smuggle through the controls some more gadgets, such ones that hadn’t even been on his list. Like the binoculars Jack still had from his years as a Time Agent.

But perhaps he knew it already. Ianto had an uncanny ability to know anything related to Jack, to the Torchwood Three team, to the Hub or to Torchwood in general. That was what made him so valuable as an archivist.

 _And_ the fact that he didn’t tend to babble, of course.

He wasn’t making any comments now, either, as the two of them climbed the battered stone steps that wound upwards around a central column through the square tower. Jack calculated the height in his head and came to the conclusion that the tower had to be at least five storeys high.

“More like six, considering the measures of contemporary architecture,” Ianto said. “Strange that there aren’t any other rooms between the ground level and the balcony. I wonder what this place was used for. A watchtower perhaps? Or a relay station? Or just a border marker?”

“Let’s hope the geeks will be able to figure it out,” Jack replied absently. “Look, I’ve found the balcony door. Perhaps we’ll see something interesting from here.”

“Yeah; more ruins, most likely,” Ianto muttered. He wasn’t as fond of great heights as Jack, although he wasn’t exactly _afraid_ of them, either. He just didn’t see the attraction in climbing up laboriously a thousand steps, just to look down at things he wouldn’t see well anyway, because of the distance.

Still as he stepped out onto the balcony next to Jack, even he had to admit that the sight was spectacular indeed. A ruined city of this size, with its narrow streets and overhanging structures, should have felt oppressive – only that it didn’t. Perhaps it was the fact that it had been ruined, not destroyed. Perhaps it was the elegant design of the crumbled structures. Perhaps the alabaster-like quality of the withered stone that seemed almost translucent in places – Jack couldn’t really tell. He only knew that the city, even in its ruins, was _beautiful_.

From their vantage point, they could see a large, mostly intact building halfway the central street that seemed to run diagonally across the whole city, some of its soaring spires still stretching towards the sky. Its main entrance looked at the street; an entranceway with triple archways, its heavy, ornate doors still in place. When Jack adjusted the binoculars and gave them Ianto, the young man gaped in awe.

“Most amazing!” he murmured. “Definitely the same architecture as Atlantis herself, just older, much older. I wonder what purpose it might have served. Perhaps you should send someone forward to take a closer look.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar, hand-held device… or, to be more accurate, one half of it. “Why don’t we take a look ourselves?”

“Jack, you can’t be serious!” Ianto protested. “Have you forgotten how dangerous this thing is?”

“Relax; it’s just the half that shows us the past,” Jack replied. Ianto raised an eyebrow.

“And that makes it right? I don’t think so. How on Earth did you manage to lift it from the storage box in Gateship Three?”

“I didn’t” Jack replied simply. “The thing lying there is a fake. I’ve hidden the real item among my clothes.”

“Fantastic!” Ianto’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “You just couldn’t bear other people taking your toy away, could you? I still can’t imagine _how_ you did it, though. I saw with my own eyes how you handed this – and it _was_ the true item, I know that, I checked it myself – to Doctor Shaw.”

“Sleigh-of-hand,” Jack shrugged. “I used to be a con man, remember?”

“Lord help me!” Ianto rolled his eyes. “I’ve married a criminal!”

“At least your life’s never gonna be boring with me,” Jack grinned unrepentantly.

Ianto’s eyebrow climbed to the roots of his hair. “You _do_ know that’s an old Chinese curse, don’t you? To wish someone they may live in interesting times?”

“Am I truly a curse to you?” Jack asked jokingly but was clearly a little hurt.

“You aren’t and you know that,” Ianto replied. “It’s just… you should find a way to get your impulsive nature under better control. To think of the possible consequences before you act. The rest of us, we ain’t indestructible; and perhaps you aren’t, either. You just haven’t met a true challenge yet.”

“Hey!” Jack took Ianto’s face in his hands and looked into the young man’s worried eyes. “I’m not gonna walk into gunfire headfirst. I’m just taking a trip into the past of this place.”

“And who says that couldn’t be every bit as dangerous as gunfire?” Ianto asked seriously. But he could see on Jack’s stubborn face that Jack was going to do this, with or without his consent. “All right,” he said with a weary sigh. “But I’m coming with you.”

“That’s out of question,” Jack replied promptly. Ianto raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“I believe you don’t get the point, Jack,” he said in an extremely dry tone. “What’s out of question is _you_ , blundering into something potentially lethal _without_ me. Either you take me with you, or I’ll tell Doctor Shaw how you’ve tricked her. It’s that simple.”

“That,” Jack said accusingly, “is blackmail.”

“Yes,” Ianto replied with a bland smile. “Is it working?”

“Course it is,” Jack muttered. “You know me too well; know which buttons to push to make me do what _you_ want.”

Which wasn’t exactly true, but in the light of his victory, Ianto wasn’t about to argue. 

“It’s only in your best interest,” he said with mock haughtiness. “You’d be lost without me, _sir_.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” Jack smiled at him, a small, intimate smile few other people have ever seen. “Come on, then, Mr. Jones. Let’s visit the past.”

He laid Ianto’s hand upon the _ghost machine_ and covered it with his own, so that they both touched the glossy black surface. Then he pushed the big, round button in the front. Their surroundings became blurred at once, as if they were standing in thick fog. Then it cleared up, just a little, and they were looking down at the Ancient city, as it had been ten thousand or more years ago. An elegant white city, full of spires and turrets and towers, all built of flawless, translucent stone.

If it was beautiful in ruins, it had been a true marvel to behold in its heyday indeed.


	12. The Ghosts of Ten Thousand Years Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the SGA pilot novelization, the Ancient woman seen at the beginning of the episode was called Cyla Urbanus. I’m not sure it’s a grammatically correct version, but it’s the only one we got, so… *shrugs*. Some of her thoughts are borrowed from the Atlantis hologram message, as it’s not hard to realize.
> 
> Also, I took some liberty with Jack’s 51st-century physiology. I know it’s a bit far-fetched, but it’s as good a guess as any other. So, beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different, is meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 11 - GHOSTS OF TEN THOUSAND YEARS PAST**

Cyla Urbanus was standing in the Council Room of the Magistrate building of Ultima Thule, the only major settlement on the planet Akynthos. Oh, there were small outposts scattered all over the planet, in hidden places where the indigenous population could not find them – they were far from ready from dealing with such advanced technology – but only _one_ city that her own people would call _home_.

Or, at least, that had _used_ to be their home. Now it was lost, just like they had lost other planets, more important and better protected ones than Akynthos that had never been anything but a remote outpost.

Things had begun so well, once, in the distant past! They had fled their home planet, the cradle of their race; fled from a terrible plague brought upon them by their ruthless enemy. They’d come to this small, untouched galaxy and – just as they had done back home – they had begun sowing life. Here, as before, they had built a system of Stargates, so that fledgling civilizations could travel between the stars, exchange knowledge and friendship, without the need of building elaborate technology first.

Here, as before, they had failed utterly.

In a time, a thousand or more worlds had been bearing the fruit of life in the form they’d brought from their distant homeworld… until that fateful day on which her people had set food upon a dark world, where a terrible enemy slept. An enemy whose entire being was the negation of everything they’d strived for. A race whose only goal was to consume everything – and _everyone_ – else. And they had the means to achieve that goal.

A whisper of icy air seemed to brush across her dark skin, stirring the small hairs on the back of her neck, and she shivered, despite the balmy air of the autumn morning. Her so far only encounter with the enemy still gave her violent nightmares.

Never before had they encountered beings with powers that rivaled their own. At first they couldn’t even _imagine_ to be defeated. In their overconfidence, they’d soon found themselves unprepared and outnumbered. Great battles had been fought and lost… and lost… and lost. By now, all major worlds under their influence had been fallen, and the enemy fed upon the defenceless human worlds like a great scourge. And they could do nothing to stop the plague.

A short time ago the call had been sent to all remaining outposts that they should give up their guardianship and return to Atlantis – their crowning glory. Atlantis was still standing, and she’d _keep_ standing, for millennia, if she had to. She was the strongest weapon and the greatest wonder they’d ever built. Now it was time for them to return under the safety of her great shield.

The others were mostly gone already. The majority of them had chosen the Ascension, shed their physical form and entered a higher level of existence. She, her partner and a few others had chosen to remain themselves… and for that very reason, they had to leave. There was nothing, absolutely nothing that they could have done for Akynthos or its people. The children would be on their own from now on. She only hoped they’d taught them well enough. Made them strong enough and resilient enough to survive, to fight for themselves, just as they had done before Ultima Thule had been built.

As for her, she was ready to leave. The necessity of doing so left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth; she’d been _born_ here, and Ultima Thule had always been her _home_. But it had to be done; if they stayed, the enemy would bomb the entire planet to pieces, just to destroy them for certain. This way, even if many individuals were to meet a horrible death, the people as a whole will survive… until, hopefully, the second evolution of their kind grew strong enough to follow them into the stars.

But _would_ they follow, she asked herself, those who came after them, already starting to spread all over the homeworld? Would they understand their inherited duty towards the people of _this_ galaxy? She hoped so; for only that hope made their defeat bearable… at least to a certain degree.

In any case, they had to leave now. Her control screen showed the domed roofs of the spaceport, beyond the city itself, open one by one, and the remaining gateships soared into the clear morning sky. Her partner was coming to pick her up and fly her to the Stargate, with such belongings as could be stuffed into the passenger section. Soon, they’d be on Atlantis, their last resort. 

Soon, they’d be homeless.

Cyla Urbanus slid her hand into the mouth of the stone relief depicting one of the mythical beasts of the homeworld: a humanoid visage, crowned with curly hair, of which short horns curved forward. The system recognized her DNA and, obeying her mental instruction, powered down. One by one, the related systems all across the city – the ones that hadn’t been already removed, that is – shut down as well. The city, at least the still functional part of it, was slowly falling into slumber.

A slumber that it would only wake up from if someone of her own kind ever returned. Until then, all this would be nothing but a useless field of ruins for everyone else.

She could see the gateship land in the open courtyard. Silanus had come for her; it was time to leave. She had done the best she could to protect her home; to protect her city from falling into the wrong hands. The rest was beyond her control.

She took a final look at the Great Hall, where she’d served her people as a legislator for decades, in a moment of farewell. Then she turned and hurried down the wide stone steps that led to the courtyard, where her ship was waiting.

She knew she’d never seen Ultima Thule again.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The reversed culling beam released her in the middle of the abandoned Lantean city, right in front of the empty shell of that which had once been the centre of their enemies’ power. Masked drones were searching the building already, and the adjoining ones down the street, under the surveillance of a lone hunter.

The hunter was an extraordinary specimen: tall and powerful, even for their kind, with long, silky white hair flowing down his broad back like icy water. Compared with him, she was small, almost fragile, and not particularly attractive with her unruly hair as read as the blood of their food.

It didn’t matter, though. She was female, and that simple fact placed her far above him; far above his reach. And while she was _not_ a Queen, being one of the unfortunate ones who’d been born infertile, her position as the Keeper of the Hive made her the ruler over life and death while the Queen was sleeping.

The long war with the Lanteans had further decimated the available feeding grounds that had never been rich to begin with. The Hives could either turn against each other and finish what the Lanteans hadn’t been able to achieve – to wipe out their entire race in a desperate struggle for food – or they could synchronise their sleeping cycles, so that only a fragment of their population would be awake at any given time.

Creating such a huge number of warrior drones to subjugate the Lanteans had resulted in an unfortunate side effect – they simply had too many to feed, while the feeding grounds were still so meagre. Yet they didn’t dare to destroy the excess number of soldiers; those might be needed later, should the Lanteans return. So they had been put to sleep, even on the currently active Hive ships.

Her own ship had not been active for a long time… and wouldn’t awaken for quite a while yet. The Hive was resting on a world without a Gate; had been resting for so long that great parts of it had already been overgrown by vegetation. It didn’t matter. When the time came, it would emerge from under all that dirt, cleanse itself and take off to the stars. To the feeding grounds that would be all theirs, for the next cycle.

Until then, she was the Queen in all but name.

She didn’t _have_ a name. Neither of them had. Names were irrelevant, used by inferior creatures that couldn’t recognize each other by mind-touch. The commanders, hunters, scientists and technicians had their distinctive personalities, marked unmistakably by the characteristics of the Hive they belonged to. Wore the genetic stamp of the Queen by whom they’d been born. The drones, _made_ rather than bred, wore the stamp of the Hive _and_ that of their progenitor. More was not needed. They were exchangeable, without a personality. The genetic stamp only served to prove the Hive’s claim over them.

In the times of extreme need, drones could also serve as food. It wasn’t an ideal solution, as their life energy was inferior, derivated from others of their kind, and thus couldn’t feed the others the same way as living prey could. But it worked for a while, if nothing else was available. Which was the other reason why the excess number of drones hadn’t been eliminated.

If not for them, the males would have turned against each other when starving, which would have been devastating. Their skills were useful and needed. _And_ the Queen needed their genetic material to breed. So they had to be protected, to a certain degree.

 _Unless_ they turned against a female. But that had never happened in the uncounted cycles since she’d been the Keeper of the Hive. The males of her Hive had no suicidal tendencies. That would have been a weakness, and her kind was _not_ weak.

She was startled out of her contemplation by the arrival of one of the technicians: a young, promising male who might be selected for breeding purposes and exchanged for an equally excellent specimen with another Hive. It would have been a loss, but an acceptable one. They had to keep the gene pool healthy.

“We haven’t found anything we could make work,” the young male reported. “The Lanteans have built out most of their technology and sabotaged the rest beyond repair.”

“Weapons?” she asked.

Speaking to her own kind with words was, strictly seen, unnecessary. She could have taken the information directly from the other’s mind. But that might have given the insignificant young male the chance to catch the one or other stray thought from her, and that could _not_ be allowed. So she accepted the imperfection of the spoken language in exchange fort he safety of her thoughts. Only to the Queen would she speak mind-to-mind, and only because she had neither the right nor the strength to resist her.

“None,” the young male answered. “It seems they never had any defence grid worth mentioning. This must have been an unimportant little outpost. We should seek out a better target if we want to...”

“Should I need your opinion, which is extremely unlikely, I shall ask,” she interrupted harshly. Males needed to be put in their places more often than not, especially the young ones. Or else they would get delusions about their own importance – like that rogue commander who dared to kill his own Queen and take her place.

Of course, that would require a mentally unstable Hive that would accept the lack of a Queen and thus the lack of any future. It was a rare thing, but it had happened before. _Once_. The Primary had ordered all active Hives to hunt down the rogues and destroy them. Never before had a central order been carried out faster and more thoroughly.

She supposed that the same would happen to _these_ rogues eventually. They could only be still around because the Primary was currently sleeping, and the other active Hives were occupied with their own problems. It didn’t matter. It was only a matter of time, and _time_ she had more than enough.

She dismissed the young male with an impatient gesture and waved the hunter closer.

“Any inhabitants?” she asked in a clipped tone that revealed her annoyance. It was also a fair warning for her subjects to stay in line, unless they wanted to become dinner.

“Just a local male who came to explore the ruins,” the hunter answered. “He killed one of the drones, though; beheaded it with an axe.”

“Then the drone was useless and deserved its fate,” she said dismissively. “Bring the man with us. Perhaps he is suitable for the new experiment. Then make a sweep for any nearby village or hunting camp. We shall need food.”

“By your orders,” the hunter replied formally, inclined his head and hurried off to carry out said orders.

Another technician approached her, this time an old and reliable one. She’d known him since he’d left the cocoon.

“The new, advanced markers are in place,” he reported. “We have also sown a few elaborate traps. The signals are linked to the relay buoys, back to the resting place of the Hive.”

He knew better than to make any suggestions, as always. Which was the reason why he was still alive and still in his relatively important position.

“Good,” she said. “Call in the Darts. We are returning home.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Their surroundings wavered and faded into nothingness. Jack and Ianto found themselves on the balcony of the square tower again, feeling as if they’d just awakened from a very long sleep.

“Wow!” Jack commented. “Gwen and Owen _did_ say the images were realistic, but I never imagined them to be _this_ realistic. As if we’d been there.”

“Actually, it was worse,” Ianto muttered. “For a moment I had the feeling as if I were in the head of that red-haired monster. I could hear its bloody _thoughts_! Do you think these guys were the Wraith?”

“I don’t see how they could have been anything else,” Jack replied slowly.

Ianto nodded. “True. So, what next? The big building that used to be the town hall or whatever? Trying to reactivate the systems that Ancient lady shut down? How are you gonna explain the others why we want to see that particular building?”

Jack shrugged. “It’s big, it lies central – it _must_ have been important. And as for reactivating the system… is it my fault if you feel the need to put your hand into the maw of a stone faun?”

“ _Me_?” Ianto repeated indignantly. “Poking dangerous tech mindlessly is Gwen’s hobby; or yours as we’ve seen repeatedly. I’m _not_ ruining my reputation, and that’s final!”

“You _have_ to,” Jack said seriously. “You’re the one with the strongest gene of our team. If the thing doesn’t react to _you_ , it sure as hell won’t react to _me_. My gene has a three-millennia-handicap compared with yours.”

Ianto frowned at him. “What do you mean with three-millennia-handicap?”

Jack raked his fingers through his hair, frustrated by his own inability to express himself. “Look, I’m older than you, right? Technically. But I’ve still been born three thousand years in your future. My DNA had thirty centuries to mutate and to be… to be _diluted_ , not to mention the bit of genetic engineering that had taken place in that time. It’s surprising that I still have the gene at all, considering all the changes that happened between the current era and my own time. Think about it: I’m a man with a womb – can you imagine anything _more_ different?” he looked at Ianto with something between surprise and disappointment. “You don’t seem shocked.”

“About the womb thing?” Ianto clarified. “I already knew about _that_.”

“You…” Jack was speechless for a moment, which didn’t happen to him very often. “How?”

Ianto gave him his best sarcastic eyebrow. “Secret Archives, remember? Torchwood Three had a fairly extensive file about you. Some details were… disturbingly minute. Did they vivisect you or something like that?”

“Something like that,” Jack agreed, shuddering with the memories. “I never knew they actually had a _file_ about my… my physiology. I guess UNIT doctors are having their field day with it right now.”

Ianto coughed apologetically. 

“Actually, that particular file suffered irreparable damage while I was ordering the Archives to hand everything over to UNIT. I was most… embarrassed about the accident and asked Tosh to help me remove all possible references from the system,” he looked at Jack seriously. “You didn’t think I’d let something like that falling into their hands, did you? I’d never allow you to become their lab rat.”

Jack sagged with relief. “Ianto Jones, have I told you lately how much I love you?”

“Not nearly often enough,” Ianto replied, without missing a beat, overplaying the fact that Jack had never actually _spoken_ those words. “Come on, let’s get back to the others and lie to them.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do the lying part,” Jack said ruefully. “I’m such a lousy liar, they’d catch me the moment I opened my mouth.”

“I know,” Ianto sighed. “How you ever managed to survive as a con man is still a mystery to me.”

“That was role-playing,” Jack explained vaguely as they descended the spiral staircase again. “ _This_ is not.”

Ianto shook his head in mild exasperation. “The things I do for my husband…” he commented in a martyred tone.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
They found the rest of the survey team still struggling with the dead console in the single room on the ground level – with absolutely no results, so far, although they had clearly tried every thick they could think of. There were side panels, now opened to reveal a confusing mass of crystal and clear conduit, the usual materials used by the Ancients. Simpson and Kavanagh had hooked up their laptops to it, in the hope that it would come alive… only it hadn’t.

“No luck so far?” Jack asked, although the answer to that was fairly obvious.

Simpson shook her head, her shoulder-length, sandy hair swapping over her bony shoulders from the gesture.

“It’s no use,” she replied in frustration. “We either risk drafting one of the gene carriers into the investigation or forget about the whole thing,” she looked at Jack. “It’s your decision, Captain.”

Jack gnawed his lower lip for a moment uncertainly. The ghost machine had shown them that the risk was perhaps a lot greater than they’d originally thought. On the other hand, turning back and missing the chance to find a ZPM was not an option, either.

“Let’s do it,” he decided. “If we can’t make the technology work, the city is useless for us, and we can stay in our tents infinitely and turn crazy.”

Simpson nodded. “All right, which one of you’ll do the honours?”

“I’ll do it,” Jack said hurriedly; after all, he couldn’t be harmed, not permanently, if the millennia-old equipment was malfunctioning. “ _What_ do I do?”

“Just lay your palm on the surface of the console,” Simpson instructed. “That should do the trick… assuming this stuff is still functioning.”

It seemed that they’d underestimated the durability of Ancient technology again, though. Barely had Jack laid his hand onto the console, it came alive… not at once, granted, but slowly and steadily. The surface became transparent, and one by one, the touch controls lit up with differently coloured lights. A virtual screen popped up in front of them, clear silver-blue like the middle of an active Stargate, displaying a short message in large, white Ancient letters.

It was a simple enough message even for the Athosians to understand.

“What is _Standby Modus_?” Halling asked in confusion.

“It means that the system is waiting for certain instructions, either from the operator or from a central server,” Kavanagh replied, furrowing his brow. “We’ve seen this before, on several different worlds with abandoned Ancient settlements, back in our own galaxy.”

“So, which one could it be?” Ianto asked. “Cos if it needs the right operator, or a password, then we’re screwed.”

“Yeah, and that’s why I think it has to be the central server,” Kavanagh replied. “Why else would they have left a still functional terminal behind? They could have sabotaged it, or taken it with them.”

“I think this must have been the final extension of some elaborate, centralized system,” Simpson added. “In which case we need to find the operations centre. All extensions will remain in standby mode until the main server’s back online.”

“The only question is, where we can find the main server,” Sergeant Hagiwara commented.

“Well, there _is_ a fairly large building in the middle of the city, along the main street,” Ianto supplied. “Perhaps it used to be the town hall, or the seat of the local government, by its central location. We should try there first.”

The two scientists perked up visibly at that piece on information an agreed that it would be the logical choice indeed. So Jack dispatched Stackhouse and Kavanagh to make a quick survey of the Magistrate building, while Hagiwara and Yamato kept scanning the surrounding area in an ever-widening circle.

They found four more surveillance devices and three explosives that looked like the Wraith equivalent of landmines between the tower and the central building. The Jamolean lance, recharged in the meantime, did its destructive best again.

Clearing the Magistrate building from similar pitfalls took about an hour. Jack used the time to report back to Dr. Shaw and discuss defensive measures with Magambo, Price and Bates, just in case the Athosian legend about the cursed city would prove true – i. e. they’d overlook one of the alarm devices. He _hoped_ they wouldn’t, but as Kavanagh had said, there were no guarantees. The city, even in its ruins, was simply too big.

“It would take weeks, perhaps even months to search every single building in here,” he explained to the Athosians with Corrigan’s help. “Until then, we’re gonna restrict ourselves to the main street and to selected buildings large enough to house our people.”

“That is a wise precaution,” Teyla said, and Halling nodded in agreement. “One should never underestimate the Wraith.”

Having seen the bogeymen of the Pegasus galaxy with his own eyes, even though only as a shadow from the past, Jack found himself in complete agreement. The more important was it to find a safe place for their people, as long as they could not afford to return to Atlantis.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Stackhouse and Kavanagh finally reported back that the big building had been thoroughly searched, several alarm devices found and short-circuited, and a dozen or so “landmines” marked and fenced off, for being dealt with later.

“I believe you can come in now safely, sir” Stackhouse added.

Jack ordered Yamato and Hagiwara back to the square tower; the former to keep watch and continue the scans for further traps, the system technician to keep an eye on the console and report any possible changes. The rest of them went to pay a visit to the Magistrate building.

From close up, the building looked even more impressive, with its, harmonic design, sleek outline, soaring spires and stained glass windows, some of which were still unbroken. The triple door wings were twice the height of a grown man, made of some unknown, silver-grey alloy and inlaid with translucent plates of thick stained glass. 

They were also closed and showed no intention to open. Not even for Beckett who had _the_ strongest gene in the entire expedition.

“Now what?” Jack asked in frustration.

“We’ve found a side entrance that had been broken down,” Kavanagh led them to a little archway on one side; it was open, and beyond it, steps could be seen that led down. “I assume the whole system has been blocked and would remain inoperable, until someone with the gene re-initializes it.”

The stairs were wide and, just like the ones in the square tower, spiralled down around a central column. Kavanagh hurried forward with his flashlight to illuminate the way for them. It led to a mostly open room, with empty corridors leading off from each wall. In the centre stood a circular bank of consoles, set into pedestals made of the local stone, translucent and white here where it hadn’t had to endure the weather.

Unfortunately, the consoles were all dark.

“We believe this must have been the actual operations centre,” Simpson explained. “Unfortunately, it’s blocked, too; and it seems that the blockade has been issued somewhere else. We had Sergeant Markham touch the consoles, but that didn’t help, either.”

“Keep trying to find the _On_ switch,” Jack said. “Ianto and I are gonna explore the rooms upstairs… I assume they’ve already been cleared?”

Stackhouse nodded. “Yes, sir, they’re secure. Can’t harm to take a scanner with you, though, just to be on the safe side.”

That was a reasonable suggestion, one that Jack followed without arguing. He asked for another scanner for Teyla, pointing out that they were in this together, and with that, he, Ianto, the Athosians, Corrigan and Beckett climbed the stairs again to explore the ground level.

It didn’t take them very long to find the Council Room they’d seen via the ghost machine. It lay in the very centre of the building, as it could be expected. Of course, it looked a little different now. The once beautifully carved furniture was now little more than pieces of petrified wood, and of the six tall, arched windows only two were still unbroken.

In one corner stood the console the Ancient woman had used in their vision, covered with the same translucent material the ones in Atlantis had been. And on one of the empty walls, opposite the main entrance, was a relief, carved of something resembling of soapstone, also covered with a translucent layer, although in a much thinner one – so thin it was barely visible. The relief depicted the head of a faun, its short horns curving forward, its mouth, large enough for a man’s hand to fit in, pulled into a wide grin, its long tongue hanging out. It could have been a wall fountain, by the look of it, had Jack not known that it was something else.

“Strange,” Corrigan commented. “I wouldn’t have expected the Ancients to depict mythical creatures in their homes. At least they never did it back in _our_ galaxy, as far as I know.”

“It’s still beautiful, though,” Ianto said softly, caressing the faun’s bearded chin. “We used to have something like this back home, at the weekly market: a faun visage similar to this, mounted on a slab of stone. You had to put your hand into its mouth, and it told you the future. It was all a hoax, of course, but as kids we found it fascinating, I wonder if this does the same…” and with well-faked casuality, he put his hand into the faun’s mouth, before the agitated Corrigan could have hindered him.

It was smooth and cool in the inside, but he could feel no protective layer in there – it was _supposed_ to be touched directly, after all. He felt the same prickling sensation in the back of his head as he had at the awakening of Atlantis. Involuntarily, a wordless greeting was formed in his mind. He couldn’t feel anything else, and he was about to turn away, disappointed, when he heard Teyla’s sudden sharp intake of breath.

He looked up and could see the protective layer melting away from the faun’s face – just as it had done in Atlantis. A quick glance towards the other corner revealed that the computer terminal was coming online as well.

“Don’t move!” Jack hissed. “If the rebooting process is interrupted, we might never be able to restart it. We’re dealing with ten thousand years old equipment here.”

Ianto nodded and practically froze in that position. He could barely believe that all this ancient technology would come alive at his mere touch, after ten millennia of inactivity. It was a mite overwhelming, to tell the truth.

Around him, lights flickered on, and then dimmed again, as if reacting to his unconscious thought that they were not necessary at this early hour. The computer screen lit up in the same silver-blue as the one had in the square tower, but this time no message appeared on it, but the face of a solemn, dark-skinned woman.

“The welcome message,” Corrigan commented softly. “We should record it, just in case.”

Jack handed him the iPod. He recognized the woman from the vision, of course, so he had an educated guess what the message would be about. Corrigan and the two Athosians, on the other hand, watched it with rapt interest. Doubtlessly, it would be re-played and repeated many times both for the expedition members and the other Athosians. 

He wondered briefly whether Halling would be able to learn it by heart after having heard it but once. Perhaps he would. Athosians seemed to have an almost eidetic memory, and Halling was better than most.

Jack stepped away from them, so that he wouldn’t disturb the recording, and touched his headset.

“Has the rebooting sequence been completed?” he asked.

“Almost there,” the tiny voice of Simpson answered. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it for another fifteen, no, better for twenty seconds. After that, it ought to be smooth sailing on our end.”

“Understood,” Jack looked at Ianto apologetically. “They say they need twenty more seconds to be on the safe side.”

“No problem,” Ianto paused, then gave him a thoughtful little smile. “I reckon the faun _is_ telling us our future, after all.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Less than a minute later Sergeant Hagiwara reported in, telling them that the system in the square tower had come online, too, giving her access to all sorts of surveillance equipment, including short-range sensors that were directed at the sky to watch atmospheric traffic. There could be no more doubt that it was part of a network that once centred in the Magistrate building.

Soon, they were able to call up the map of the city, formerly important buildings marked and properly labelled. The language was a rare Ancient dialect that even the Athosians had a hard time to understand; but with the help of the iPod, they could localize that which had once been a healing facility, a public educational complex (supposedly containing an extensive digital library), various science labs, a gym and other places of possible interest. All of which were conveniently situated in close proximity of the Magistrate building. The Ancients clearly had been a well-organized society.

“We still haven’t found any defensive weapons,” Jack reported to Dr. Shaw, “but there’s something under the central building Doctor Kavanagh thinks could be a shield generator. If we could become in functional, we’d be safe here.”

“Assuming its energy source isn’t already depleted,” Dr. Shaw said in concern.

“True,” Jack allowed. “Our geeks still haven’t figured out _what_ powered it in the first place. We could use more science personnel here. And more soldiers, to continue searching and scanning the immediate area, before the bulk of our people move in.”

“I think we should consider the moving in part more carefully,” Dr. Shaw said. “There’s still a slim chance that we might return to Atlantis, and _that_ would be a great deal more difficult if we had to haul all our equipment first down to the valley and then back to the Stargate. But I definitely agree with needing more personnel there. Engineers, technicians and soldiers first, medical staff next, and the rest when everything is secured,” she paused for a moment, and then added with emphasis. “I trust you to have everything under control there, Jack.”

“No worries; I do,” Jack replied, hoping that he was telling the truth. He was used to deal with the dangerous and the unexpected, but he was used to do it on a small scale. He’d only ever been responsible for himself and his small handful of a team. Never for so many people, including small kids. Quite frankly, it still frightened the hell out of him.

“Of course you do,” Ianto said encouragingly; he’s been eavesdropping on their conversation. “After all, you have _me_ now to keep you in line.”

“Or what?” Jack asked in amusement.

Ianto gave him a dark look that sent shivers down his spine. “You don’t want to know,” he replied, his voice dropping half an octave.

Jack flashed his patented, thousand megawatt grin at him. “Promises, promises…”

Kavanagh, who was working nearby, rolled his eyes behind those wire-rimmed glasses (“Geek Specials”, as Markham called them) in exasperation.

“Either do something useful or get a room, you two,” he snapped at them. “ _Some_ people are trying to work here, and your mating dance is extremely distracting.”

Jack kept grinning unrepentantly and picked up a scanner.

“C’mon, Ianto, let’s find some more booby traps,” he said. “It’s not as much fun as Weevil hunting, but somebody’s gotta do it.”


	13. Phoenix Rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trémois is borrowed from the French cop series “Julie Lescaut” and is here to make the lovely fanarts_series happy. She wanted some Frenchmen in Atlantis. Trémois was played by actor Jérome Anger. 
> 
> System tech Corelli is one of the nameless extras sometimes seen in the Control room. Chang Lee is the nameless system tech played by Yee Ji Tsou. Dr. Moosekian is a recurring OC of mine, “played” by Rory Cochrane. Dr. Mendoza is another OC, “played” by Santiago Cabrera. Ignácio Yniguez is also an OC, “played” by Richard Yniguez.

**CHAPTER 12 - PHOENIX RISING**

Dr. Svetlana Markova _loved_ being in charge of Atlantis, even if it was only a temporary assignment. It reminded her of her previous command, in Siberia, near Kuybishev Base. Here like there, they were just a couple of brilliant and dedicated people, cut off from the rest of mankind – there by the snow and the great distances, here by uncounted tons of sea water. Here like there, they could only count on themselves, and that created a unique atmosphere of camaraderie.

Sure, the living conditions were far from ideal, even compared with those at Kuybishev Base. In order to save as much energy as humanly possible, they never ventured beyond the Gate room, the Control room and the adjoining facilities. They even lived in the small, one-room quarters that had once served as the resting room of duty personnel… two people in one room, to use as little power as possible. 

It wasn’t always comfortable, but it gave them more time to try saving Atlantis. And since everyone worked ungodly hours, they didn’t have the time to develop cabin fever.

Markova wasn’t surprised that Peter Grodin and Martha Jones chose to share quarters. Everybody knew that those two had had something running back at the SGC already. Or even further back, at Antarctica Base, where both had worked for a while before joining the Atlantis expedition. The only question up to debate had been whether Dr. Jones had broken up with her fiancée for Grodin, or had she started an affair with Grodin _because_ she’d broken up with her fiancée, for comfort. 

Not even Dr. Zelenka seemed to know it, which was definitely a first; the man usually knew everything. But perhaps he was just being a loyal friend. After all, he’d worked with them on Antarctica, too.

Markova, for her part, ended up sharing quarters with Suzie Costello, mostly because all other women seemed extremely wary around the Torchwood technical expert. She found the arrangement satisfying. Suzie was a quiet room-mate, with a somewhat anal-retentive hang to keep her surroundings neat and well-ordered, and while Markova wasn’t quite that obsessed with neatness herself, she appreciated not having to bunk with a schlub.

Besides, it gave her the chance to know Suzie a little better.

Searching the database for the failsafe mechanism was progressing slowly. With the help of Zelenka, who proved to be as ingenious as he’d been in Siberia, despite _not_ having the gene, Toshiko had managed to localize and shut off all nonessential systems and to reduce life support for the few rooms they actually occupied. Even so, power was nearing its limits.

“Another section on the far side of the city flooded an hour or so ago,” Dr. Moosekian, a scruffy little engineer from Armenia, reported glumly. 

Markova frowned. She had known Moosekian for years, had worked with him from time to time, and knew the man didn’t panic easily. Was their situation truly so dire?

“Is there no way we could spare more energy?” she asked.

Peter Grodin, who was coordinating the practical side of things, shook his head. 

“We’d done all that we could,” he replied in that supremely educated English accent of his that tended to give her an inferiority complex. “Unfortunately, Professor Taylor was right: even occupying this room is draining more power than the city would use in a _year_ if left empty.”

“Our only chance is to find the failsafe and let the city rise, as long as the shield is still holding,” Trémois, one of the French engineers added. “Or to flee through the Stargate after the others with the last watts of our power.”

Markova nodded her understanding – it wasn’t anything they hadn’t discussed before dozens of times – and walked to the window of her (or rather Dr. Shaw’s) office. Atlantis spread out below her, glittering like white mist through the clear water. So beautiful. So full of secrets begging to be unravelled. So many questions to be answered. The thought that they might not get the chance to do so filled her with melancholy.

Someone stepped up to her, and turning slightly she saw that it was Antonio Corelli, one of the systems technicians, on his way to relieve Chang Lee from duty.

“Here it comes,” the handsome, elegantly greying Italian said softly.

Markova raised a questioning eyebrow, and Corelli gestured towards a distant spire. The surface of the forcefield that was covering it rippled; then a slow rumble could be perceived, shaking the floor beneath their feet. In the distance they could see air bubbles rise from the windows of the flooding tower.

“Another part of the shield has failed,” Markova realised. “We don’t have much time left. If we could by ourselves just another day, maybe…”

Corelli shook his head. “The city is sacrificing parts of itself to sustain the main areas,” he said. “But catastrophic shield failure…”

“… is inevitable,” Markova finished for him. “Yes, I know _that_ , Mr. Corelli. The question is, what can we still do _before_ that happens.”

“Actually,” Toshiko put her head into the office,” there’s a lot we can do. Or so I hope; I think we’ve finally found it.”

“The failsafe?” Markova asked, not quite daring to trust her ears. Yes, she _had_ hoped – but that hope was built on very thin ice.

Toshiko nodded. “We think so, yes. Care to come down and take a look?

 _We_ , that was herself, in close teamwork with Doctors Kusanagi and Zelenka. All the others had merely been assisting; Suzie Costello before everyone else, although she, like Zelenka, was seriously hampered by not having the gene. They were brilliant, all four of them, much more so than their files stated. If Toshiko Sato said they _might_ have found the failsafe, chances were very good that they _had_ found it indeed.

Markova followed her down to the Control room, giving the monitor displaying the shield status a fleeting glance. It did _not_ look good. All areas were flashing red now. She only hoped her quartet of quiet geniuses hadn’t made a mistake, because this sure as hell would be their only chance.

“Show me,” she said, listening to Toshiko’s rapid-fire explanations. Zelenka chimed in, switching to Russian when his English vocabulary capitulated in face of the challenge to express himself properly, and from this bilingual dump of information, Markova finally came to understand the outline of things.

It _might_ work. On the other hand, if it didn’t, the shield would just collapse, without the city rising to the surface, and they’d all die. As simple as that.

A low rumble vibrated through the entire city, and the floor began shaking under their feet violently. All around her people became deathly pale all of a sudden, fighting their panic with visible effort.

“Shield is collapsing,” Grodin said in a tight voice, his face ash grey.

Markova looked at Toshiko. “We have no choice. Do it. Now.”

Toshiko nodded and started typing away at a frantic speed, snapping orders to Miko Kusanagi in Japanese. The two women were working so fast that their fingers became a blur over the controls. Perhaps, perhaps they were gonna make it…

Suddenly, a massive jolt shuddered through the city, throwing people and equipment to the floor. Someone was screaming; the Gate flickered and powered down. The noise was incredible; the shaking so intense that Markova had the feeling her teeth may come loose any moment.

Grodin hauled himself upright, having momentarily overcome his panic, and staggered over to the DHD.

“I’m dialling Athos,” he announced. “We need a way out.”

“No!” Markova shouted. Grodin stopped, hand poised over the first symbol. “Dialling out now will just use up the last of the remaining power,” he yelled over the noise. “This whole section will flood before we can make it out.”

The mere idea filled her with mind-numbing panic. Memories of the planet with the sentient water came up, uninvited, and she began to shake with the remembered horror of it. Grodin stared at her in confusion.

“Staying is _not_ an option!” he yelled back.

She grabbed his arm, more for support than to hold him back; his skin felt so warm under her icy fingers, so _alive_ that she could have drowned in the sensation. She held on for dear life, as if she feared she’d lose it without his not-quite-so-calming presence, he was panicking just as much as she was, but at least he was _there_ , warm and solid and _human_ , and still very much alive…

At the same time, she noticed a shift in the light. It was getting _brighter_.

“It’s happening now, can you feel it?” she murmured, barely audible through the noise. “We’re _moving_!”

The noise was now changing, too. It was no longer a rumble as rather the sound of… rushing water, straining metal. Flooding perhaps? No; the sound wasn’t inside. It was _outside_ , and she briefly wondered how it was possible to hear it through the thick metal hull of the city… of the _ship_.

She could feel her stomach lurch. It was a feeling similar to the one she always had in rapid-speed elevators. Damn inner ear problems! She hoped she wouldn’t end up throwing up all over the controls… _this_ time. 

Because they wee definitely moving. They were _rising_! Atlantis was rising to the surface!

Standing in front of the huge window, arms wrapped around each other protectively, Toshiko Sato and Miko Kusanagi watched the ocean slip away from the planes. It was replaced by waterfalls cascading from roofs and spires, as brilliant, glorious sunlight streamed through the water and refracted into multiple rainbows that sparkled across the room, casting colourful patterns on the stunned face of Dr. Zelenka, who was beaming like a child and stared out of the window with open-mouthed awe. 

He murmured something in Czech, completely overwhelmed with both the beauty of the outside world and the fact that they weren’t going to die, after all.

“We’re on the surface!” Grodin breathed, helping Markova, whose knees had suddenly given in, back to her feet. Then he gave Toshiko a look full of respect. “How did you know…?”

“I didn’t; not for sure,” she replied simply. “I just wasn’t willing to give up.”

Markova smiled. “I was hoping for just another day, but it looks we’ll get more than that, after all,” she said. “Call the rest of our people, Mr. Grodin. We have some good news to share and plans to make.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The good news came close to a wholesome shock for Dr. Shaw; but it also meant that they had to re-think their entire strategy, and _that_ required careful planning. To discuss the matter properly, she, Kirkitadze, the heads of the various science sections, Jack, Ianto, Captains Magambo and Price and others whose opinion would be considered important, returned to Atlantis. 

They had to define the immediate future of their little colony, so Dr. Shaw had invited the Athosian Elders along with them. Whatever they’d decide, it would affect the Athosians as well. They had a right to vote, assuming the Earthers wanted to explore the Ancient city any further.

As the ones who usually spoke for their people, Teyla and Halling accepted the invitation with their natural dignity, even though setting foot on Atlantis had visibly shaken them. As it turned out, the city had been as much the subject of ancient legends among the Athosians as it had been on Earth; and they had different views on it. Teyla clearly saw it as a piece of their history coming alive again, while for Halling it seemed to be some sort of holy relic. Still, they both dealt reasonably well with being there.

As for the expedition members, they were slowly getting over the euphoria of having saved Atlantis and turned their brilliant minds towards the practical issues of the future now lying before them. Because the sobering truth was that by saving the city their problems hadn’t lessened a bit. In truth, they’d perhaps gotten up another notch, and Dr. Shaw found herself assigned to the task of breaching _that_ fact to the others.

A task Jack didn’t envy her for a bit.

“Let us assess the current situation,” she said, speaking slowly, so that the Athosians, too, could follow… or Corrigan could translate for them if necessary. “We have saved Atlantis from being crushed by the pressure of thousands of tons of seawater… so far that is a good thing, in my opinion. We’ve come here in the first place to find and to study the city; now we get the chance to actually _do_ so. However, we still haven’t solved the power problem,” she looked at Markova. “Can you give me our current power status?”

“The last ZPM is depleted,” Markova answered, “but limited power has returned now that our own generators aren’t trying to hold back an ocean. Life support systems are working…”

“Do we need them?” Martha asked. “The planet’s atmosphere is breathable, aside from the inevitable allergens…”

“Which we havtae research very carefully, if we’re gonna live here for the duration,” Carson added. “Compare them with those we may find on Athos, too, if we wanna see whether the Athosians would react allergic to anything _here_. They seem a healthy and robust people, but…”

“But every planet has its specific biosphere, so there’s always some risk involved,” Dr. Lorenzo Mendoza, their only palaeontologist, finished for him.

“Excuse me,” Teyla raised a hand. “I am afraid I do not understand the problem. As far as I know, the plants and animals are very similar on most of the inhabited worlds my people have visited.”

“Yes, but those people you visited all live fairly close to the Stargate… to the Ring, aren’t they?” Mendoza asked. 

Teyla nodded. “Within a few hours’ walk, yes.”

“It’s the same way in our galaxy, wherever the Gates are in a temperate part of the planet,” Mendoza said. “Traffic through the Stargates most likely has spread some plant species around, at least in the area in close proximity of the Gate. So, if a certain group lives, say, a mile from _their_ Gate, and another group about the same distance of a Gate on a different planet, their living conditions would be much closer to each other than to groups living a hundred miles away on the same planet.”

Teyla and Halling talked among each other in low voices, checked with Corrigan whether they’d understood everything correctly, and then they both nodded in agreement.

“It would explain why we find so many similar plants on the planets of our trade partners,” Halling said thoughtfully, “and why the rare goods always come from some other part of the same planet.”

“Exactly,” Mendoza agreed. “There could still be significant differences, which is why our botanists need to compare the local fauna on both planets, and that bug expert, Doctor Mahesh Vitaysomething, has to take a close look at the insects native to both places.”

“Vijayaraghavensatyanaryanamurthy,” Dr. Chandra Suresh corrected. “He’s a nameworthy entomologist, probably the best of his generation.”

“ _Name_ worthy is the understatement of the century,” Jack muttered. “Only the Slitheen had worse names than that little guy.”

“I can understand that Americans find it hard to remember,” Dr. Suresh Sr said in the somewhat condescending manner of someone who represented a culture that was thousands of years older, “and so has he. That’s why he’s accepted being called simply Doctor Mahesh.”

“Yeah, and because he was sick and tired of everyone calling him _Bug_ ,” Dr. Mendoza grinned.

Captain Magambo tapped her pen against the glossy surface of the Ancient conference table and turned back the discussion to its actual topic.

“Those are all valid concerns, but I think we’ve forgotten about the most important question,” she said. “Professor Taylor, can our generators supply enough power for the shield for defensive purposes?”

She instinctively turned for answers to someone she’d known well from previous experience, even though Taylor might not been the right person to provide answers, not even having been on Atlantis in the recent days.

“Not even close!” the professor replied, arms folded. He clearly saw their situation as a personal offence.

“Then we have a serious problem,” Magambo noted. “On the surface, without the shield, we’re target practice.”

Professor Taylor gave her a withering look. “I’m acutely aware of that, Erisa. Thank your for reinforcing it. We’d be really lost without the brilliant insights of the military.”

“Actually, you would,” Jack retorted. “What Captain Magambo is trying to get into that thick Welsh skull of yours is this: Atlantis is on the _surface_. Last time she’s been on the surface, she was besieged by the Wraith and nearly destroyed. The only way the Ancients could save her was to sink her. Now we’ve brought her back to the surface with only a handful of soldiers with _way_ inferior weapons to defend her. So, the question is not only _how_ we can hope to defend her, but also whether we can take the risk of bringing our people back here.”

“Of course we can, are you bloody _insane_?” Professor Taylor practically exploded into Jack’s face. “We _must_. That’s why we _came_ here! The knowledge, the technology, probably even the weapons of the Ancients… it’s all here, we just need to find it and make it work!”

“True,” Liz Shaw agreed smoothly. “But you must also admit, Professor, that while we’re doing _that_ , we won’t need, say, the botanists, the teachers, the medical scientists, the anthropologists and the likes here in Atlantis. They could work much easier and better in the ancient city on Athos.”

“Not to mention that – unlike Atlantis – the city actually still _has_ a shield,” Jack added. “Not such a strong one as Atlantis used to have, but… adequate, if one can trust Doctor Kavanagh.”

“You can,” Zelenka said. “Calvin is grossly paranoid. If _he_ says a place is safe, it _is_ safe.”

“We can’t split the expedition up!” Professor Taylor protested. “We can barely cover the most essential workplaces here as it is, and…”

“Yes, we can,” Markova interrupted him coolly. “In fact, we _must_. Based on Doctor Simpson’s preliminary report, there’s probably a great deal of useful technology in the city on Athos… does it have a name?”

“I think it might have been called Ultima Thule,” Corrigan said. Jack and Ianto kept their poker faces, not wanting to reveal the secret of the ghost machine just yet.

Markova nodded. “ _Spasiba_. Perhaps some of that technology, being a lot older than the one in Atlantis, would be more easily accessible for us.”

“And don’t forget the library!” Corrigan added. “Granted, the dialect is a little tricky, but…”

“I’ve developed a very effective translation software for alien languages,” Toshiko offered. “Perhaps if I uploaded it to your laptop, it might help.”

Dr. Shaw nodded. “Sounds promising. In any case, we can’t afford to simply ignore whatever knowledge and technology we may find in Ultima Thule. It could even give us a better understanding of the technology we already know, since the Ancients seem to have had a definite aversion against user's manuals.”

“There is another aspect, a non-technical one,” Dr. Suresh said quietly. “It would be healthier for the children to live in a natural environment… despite the potential allergens. These planets seem largely unpolluted, due to the lack of advanced technology. Against local pathogens they can develop immunities or get shots, but they are still the lesser risk than whatever might be hidden in Atlantis.”

“What do ya mean, man?” Beckett asked, frowning.

“As far as we can tell, Atlantis was the last fortress of the Ancients,” Chandra Suresh replied with an elegant shrug. “They were losing the war, and they were most likely desperate. Desperate people tend to take desperate measures to prevent their refuge from falling into enemy hands.”

“You mean chemical or biological weapons!” Jack realized. “Booby traps all over the city, perhaps.”

The geneticist nodded. “Precisely. They’ll most likely spare any gene carriers, but would we want the children to run free in the city before we can be sure that it’s safe?”

“What you say does have its merits,” Kirkitadze admitted. “There’s even the possibility that unauthorized access – say, the lack of the ATA gene – may trigger a self-destruct mechanism we haven’t discovered yet. We have to use the opposite method Captain Harkness’s team used in Ultima Thule: sending the gene carriers in first, so that Atlantis would accept the search teams without triggering any self-defence weapons system.”

“That would make it easy to decide, how to split expedition,” Zelenka said a little regretfully. “Gene carriers stay, everyone else leaves.”

Jack shook his head. “That wouldn’t work. Firstly, we’re not nearly enough to do even the preliminary work in Atlantis. Secondly, we’re needed in Ultima Thule, too. The vital areas only allow access to gene carriers.”

“So, what’s your suggestion, Jack?” Dr. Shaw asked. “Because I assume you _have_ one.” 

Jack nodded. “We should rotate the teams between Ultima Thule and Atlantis,” he said. “At the very least the technicians and the military personnel, so that they can get used to working in both places. As for the science department, we’ll have to see where they can be more efficient.”

“Knowing the Ancients, they’d have extensive labs in both cities,” Corrigan supported the idea. “The individual science sections can choose the ones with the more suitable equipment, regardless of the location. It will take some time to figure out the logistics, but this might indeed be the most efficient use of our resources.”

“Speaking of resources, “Ignácio Yniguez, their lead botanist injected, “what about food production? I know we’ve brought enough dehydrated food to feed the expedition for a year, but we can’t live on that exclusively. Besides, sooner or later we’ll run out of it.”

He was a heavily built, middle-aged man of Mexican origins, coming from a very poor agrarian family and thus with ample first-hand experience with food-growing. He’d laboured hard on his father’s small lands as a young man.

“We can’t just start growing Earth plants on Athos!” Dr. Mendoza protested. “Not without a thorough research of the local flora. Or else we could cause a planet-wide plant plague.”

Ianto cleared his throat. “Actually… I’ve taken a look at the internal map of Atlantis, with the help of our data storage device, and found the hydroponics gardens. Apparently, the Ancients were aware of such dangers and chose to grow their food on the ship herself.”

Yniguez nodded in obvious relief. “Well, that will take care of the problem, at least for the immediate future. We’ll still have to give the local foodstuff a try in the long run, but that’s what Cristina Piccoli is here for. She’s a plant geneticist; she might figure out how to cross-breed Earth plants with local ones, to make them adapt to the new biospheres later.”

“We can keep Parrish and Brown in Ultima Thule, while Piccoli and you give the hydroponics gardens a try,” Mendoza suggested. “The oceanologists should stay, too; there’s nothing for them on Athos. At least not anywhere close to the Gate.”

“Let us not get lost in details,” Dr. Shaw interrupted. “I’ll work out a schedule with the help of Mr. Jones and Corporal Bell shortly, taking the suggestions of the section heads into consideration.”

“And where will _you_ be?” Teyla asked, after having cleared with Corrigan that both she and Halling had understood the basics of the dispute correctly.

Dr. Shaw smiled. “Since I don’t have the gene, I’ll stay in Ultima Thule, for the time being; besides, I’ll be needed there for the period of settling down. I’ve been selected to lead the entire expedition, not just he science department; that’s Markova’s job.”

“But she doesn’t even have the gene!” Professor Taylor protested.

“Neither have you,” Dr. Shaw pointed out. “It doesn’t matter, as she’ll have Doctors Sato, Kusanagi and Grodin to help her.”

“What about me?” Jack asked. “I’ve got the gene, too… and so does Ianto.”

“I’ll need Mr. Jones with me to help organize things in Ultima Thule,” Dr. Shaw said. “And since we’ve taken the gateships to Athos, I'll need all those who can fly them over there, too. _You_ particularly; to train other gene carriers in piloting.”

Jack nodded in understanding. In truth, he didn’t really mind. He preferred to stay wherever Ianto was, for the duration, although he didn’t like the fact that his team would be split up as well.

“Captain Magambo is more than qualified to serve as the military commander of Atlantis in my absence,” he said. “We can rotate the job between the three of us later,” he added, looking at Marion Price, who nodded.

“I’d be happy to do some geeky stuff for the time being,” she replied. She was a good engineer who loved her job, aside from being a UNIT officer.

Dr. Shaw smiled in satisfaction. “Very well. I’d like all section heads to work with Mr. Jones on establishing a rotation schedule. I want to know who’ll be in Atlantis and who’ll be in Ultima Thule at any given time. We’ll also need to assign quarters to everyone in both places, as people will need to have a stable environment, wherever they happen to work,” she looked at Ianto. “Corporal Bell will work with you on the logistics. She’s extremely efficient, as you already know.”

Ianto nodded and made notes in his Torchwood-issue PDA. Working with Corporal Bell was something he’d enjoyed greatly while they’d been still planning the expedition. He had no doubt that they’d get along well again. The logistics of organizing the lives of both groups _and_ harmonizing them with each other promised to be mind-numbing, but he was used to such things. He’d done something similar for Torchwood One for a while, right before the Battle of Canary Wharf, and there had been four times as many people as here.

“Do you want me to assign quarters for the Athosian representatives as well?” he asked.

Dr. Shaw looked at Teyla. “Would you like to establish a presence on Atlantis?”

The two Athosians and Corrigan discussed the question for a moment, then Teyla shook her head.

“I shall not send anyone to live on Atlantis permanently,” she said. “ _This_ is not our way to live. But we would like to have a place reserved for those who may come to the City of the Ancestors for a short visit. The same for the old city on our planet.”

“Understood,” Ianto filed away the request. “Since you tend to have large families, I’ll reserve one of the bigger quarters for you, in the area that will hopefully be the family wing one day. Even if the families will mostly stay on Athos.”

“That will be excellent, thank you,” Teyla replied simply.

“I would like to stay for a visit,” Halling added. “To watch the message of the Ancestors, to know their city a little… There is much that needs to be added to the Traditions. Then I shall return to the old city and do the same.”

Dr. Shaw had no objections, and with that, the meeting was adjourned. The deadline for working out a rotation for all expedition personnel was set for three days from then.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
In the following three days Ianto was so extremely busy Jack had barely seen hide or hair of him. He remained on Atlantis for that time period, for simply practical reasons. The unknown planet upon which ocean Atlantis was currently floating had a 29-hour-day, as opposed to Athos, whose day had only a 22-hour-rotation. He simply needed more time to get the work done.

Doctors Nichols and Mendoza had been excited when they realized the difference, opportunities of a research of several lifetimes forming before their mind’s eye.

“Think about it!” the palaeontologist, a handsome, slightly long-haired young man from Chile, enthused. “Studying the differences in the evolutionary process caused by that would be a project large enough for an entire _university_! And there’s only the two of us! We’re so winning a Nobel Prize for this… well, we would, if this whole thing wasn’t strictly confidential.”

Dr. Nichols, short, stocky and bespectacled, nodded enthusiastically. He wasn’t a very pleasant fellow to work with, not usually – the only scientist people avoided more was Professor Taylor – but right now, he was beaming with excitement.

“At the same time, we must take the effect into consideration that the divergences from Earth’s 24-hour rotation might have on our people,” Martha warned, “whether they’re here or in Ultima Thule.”

“Especially when they’re hopping back and forth between the two places,” Owen added sourly.

“Aye, that can be a problem,” Dr. Beckett agreed. “I’d suggest havin’ people in the same place fer a month or two apiece, or else we could end up with sleepin’ schedules gone to the dogs fer good.”

“Where are _you_ staying?” Captain Price asked.

“I’m goin’ to Ultima Thule fer starters,” Beckett replied. “I’m a geneticist meself, and aside from keepin’ an eye on the wee ones, I’d be the most useful helpin’ Doctor Suresh – both of them – with mappin’ the Athosian genome. Plus, I wanna study Athosian herbal medicine and its possible affects on human physiology. Sooner or later, we’re gonna runnin’ out of our medical supplies, and if _that_ happens, I wanna have somethin’ else to rely on.”

He sighed and looked at Martha. “I’m leavin’ things in your capable hands here, love. You’re much better with this technical stuff than I can ever hope to become anyway.”

“Perhaps; but you’ve got a much stronger gene,” Martha pointed out.

Beckett smiled at her tiredly. “Ya’ll do just fine, love; and if not, ya’ll have Peter to help you out. To be honest, I dearly love the thought of living in a natural environment for a change.”

With that, he left to reorganize the medical staff, so that the two halves would work smoothly without each other. Ianto checked his and Martha’s name on the list, then he looked at Jack.

“What about Owen?” he asked. “Are we taking him with us to Athos?”

“Hell, no!” Jack replied with emphasis. ”He’d insult the locals, drink all the moonshine he can lay his hands on and have poor Carson in tears within days. You know how much he hates the countryside.”

“No more than I do,” Ianto muttered darkly. Jack gave him a rueful smile and touched the nape of his neck in a brief, comforting gesture.

“That’s different. You had a traumatic experience. Owen’s just a through and through urban animal… and a nasty one at times. Carson wouldn’t stand a chance against him; the man is too gentle-hearted. Martha, on the other hand, is more than capable of putting him in his place.”

“Can I shoot him?” Martha asked with an evil gleam in her pretty eyes.

“I’ve tried _that_ ,” Ianto told her. “It doesn’t work. Just insult his professional pride, that hurts him more than anything.”

Martha nodded nonchalantly. “I can do that. What about the rest of the team?”

“I’d like Miss Costello to stay here,” Markova said. “I found that I can work with her very well.”

Jack looked at her in surprise for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine with me. That means Mickey has to stay, too. Tosh anyway. It seems that it’ll be just you and me and our two PCs, Ianto. They’ll come with the civilian security.”

“Suzie will be relieved,” Ianto replied sarcastically. “Well, someone ought to make the sacrifice.”

“Oh, c’mon, Ianto, Andy isn’t _that_ bad,” Jack said.

“No,” Ianto agreed blandly. “ _Andy_ isn’t. I never protested against _his_ presence.”

“You know my reasons,” Jack said after a short, tense pause.

“Yeah, I do,” Ianto replied. “Doesn’t mean I have to _like_ them,” he checked the aforementioned names, then pocketed his PDA. “Well, we’re done with personnel issues for the time being. Let’s face the horrors of distributing our equipment between the two groups next.”

“You never give an old woman a break, do you?” Corporal Bell complained, but she went with him to re-check the packing lists willingly.

Captain Price gave Jack an inquiring look. “Domestic squabble?”

“More like a disagreement… and a long-lasting one,” Jack answered with a sigh. “Well, let’s form our survey teams and decide who goes where for the first rotation.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is meant to be different.  
>  **Warning:** Owen is having a bad day. And a filthy mouth. ‘Nuff said.

**CHAPTER 13 - THE PROMISED LAND**

Moving the majority of the expedition to Ultima Thule was an enormous undertaking that took several weeks. Dr. Shaw was adamant about _not_ letting anyone move in – especially not the families with children – until at least the most important buildings along the main street, the one that ran from the entrance of the valley to the other end of it, were declared safe.

Four weeks after the rising of Atlantis, they’d still barely scratched the surface. Dr. Shaw had taken residence in the Magistrate building that still had a number of intact rooms on the ground floor. That meant the administrative staff – including Corporal Bell, Ianto, Kirkitadze and the lawyer’s personal assistant, a young computer expert named Lois Habiba – worked from there out as well.

Incredibly but true: the sanitary systems were still in working order – perhaps they’d been protected the same way as the computer terminals, without anyone realizing it before the protective layers would melt away – and the rooms were large and airy, albeit unfurnished. Whatever furniture there once might have been, it had not survive the millennia gone by. Only a few bits of petrified wood could be found in any of the rooms; bits that Dr. Mendoza confiscated at once for future research.

Since working technology was more important for survival than proper furniture, people accepted the inconvenience without _much_ complaining. Professor Taylor was an exception, of course, who tried to get a reassignment to Atlantis (so far in vain), and Gwen didn’t seem to be happy about sleeping on a mattress on the floor, either. The others, though, just shrugged and went on with their work.

Besides, there were worse accommodations, as Jack pointed out.

“Your room under the Hub comes to mind,” Ianto teased. “Compared with that cot of yours, a mattress on the floor is practically luxurious.”

“Hey!” Jack complained much-seriously. “I slept on that cot for a century or so!”

“Yeah; it _felt_ so, too,” Ianto replied blandly.

Kavanagh, who was working with them in the operations centre under the Magistrate building, rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“Are you two familiar with the term _too much information_?” he snapped. “Some people are trying to _work_ here!”

“Sorry,” Ianto gave him a falsely contrite smile that fooled no-one.

“Okay,” Jack said. "Had you any luck with finding a detailed map of the city?”

Ianto nodded. “That we had. Unfortunately, the Ancients weren’t any bitter at giving directions than they were at writing user’s manuals. There are a number of buildings we weren’t able to identify yet, despite Dr. Lindsey’s efforts,” he brought up a detailed holographic map of the city that lacked any labels. “Like these domed ones at the other end of the city. I’d like to know what they were used for.”

“And you found no mentioning of them in the database?” Jack asked.

Ianto shook his head. “No, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. The amount of data stored in here,” he patted the stone socket lovingly, “is downright frightening. And search programmes, even the most advanced ones, are of little use without the right keywords. Especially in such a peculiar language as Ancient.”

“We’ll simply have to wait until the survey teams are finished with the main road,” Jack said, a little disappointed. “Of course, I could take one of the gateships for a quick survey myself…”

“That would be unwise, and you know that,” Ianto warned him seriously.

Jack pulled a face. “Yes, I know… but I’m _bored_ , okay? I’m completely useless here, because of the frigging gene. I want to do something, instead of just standing around here and hindering others in their work.”

“Then go over to the school and charm the kids into behaving themselves,” Ianto laughed. “Tell them some outrageous story to keep them occupied until the rooms are fixed. Their parents would bless your name for eternity for that.”

That sounded like a sensible idea and, after a moment of hesitation, Jack left the Magistrate building to do as he’d been told, wondering if it was just his imagination or was Ianto indeed getting a little bossy lately.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The education centre of the Ancients – or what was left of it – occupied a good part of the main street opposite the Magistrate, and it had been selected as the temporary accommodation for all families with children. Including the young daughters of the Scottish oceanologists, Doctors McNab and Moore, who’d remained in Atlantis, and thus the girls stayed with the Suresh clan. Since their parents were co-workers with Dr. Bryce née Suresh, they’d known the Suresh children practically since their birth, so it wasn’t such a big deal for them.

With the Oktharev boys, Mikey Naseband and the sons of the Sorensen-Davidson couple, the school was a colourful mix of ages, nationalities and gender. When Jack arrived, he also found a bunch of Athosian children there, among them Jinto, Halling’s son, his friend Wex and Miri, Selena’s daughter. Currently they were all gathered in one of the larger rooms that, according to the child-sized computer terminals standing in a semi-circle, must have been one of the classrooms.

A middle-aged woman – Dr. Chandra Suresh’ wife, Probhat Madini, who was a school teacher by trade – had them working on the computers that Sergeant Hagiwara had managed to finally turn on a couple of days earlier. By the sight of it they were playing various games, each one matching their individual ages, that apparently served to improve their hand-eye coordination… something that doubtlessly would come in handy, once the Athosian children would grow up enough to become hunters themselves. They seemed to adapt to new technology the same way the adults did – learned to use it quickly, without bothering to understand the science behind it.

At which must have been the teacher’s control terminal, the wife of Dr. Suresh Jr. was sitting, running a complex analysis of the skills the children were displaying. Dr. Ramani Duvashar was an accomplished medical scientist of her own right, whose research at the University of Madras had been focused on health psychology, with a specific focus on neuropsychiatry of HIV and AIDS, as well as on the relationship between psychiatric disorders and risky sexual behaviour in people already infected with the virus. She’d been selected for the expedition to deal with the aftermath of people being infected with alien diseases.

When Jack entered, both women looked up from their work and smiled at him, but gestured him to stay where he was until the kids were done with their task. Jack understood and watched them for a while. When they were finished, Ms Madini waved him closer.

“What can we do for you, Captain Harkness?” she asked with her lilting Indian accent that always stirred painful memories in Jack.

“Actually, it’s the other way round,” he grinned, trying _not_ to think of the fairies, of his men lying dead in that train, of Estelle. It was as it was, and he could not change the past. “Ianto sent me over to make myself useful. He meant I should tell the kids a story or whatever.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ms Madini took his arm and led him deeper into the classroom. “Children, you all know Captain Harkness, don’t you?” she asked.

There was a literal chorus of delighted agreement, and Jack grinned. The kids clearly liked him – it was a nice feeling that made him miss his grandson slightly less.

“He’s offered to tell us a story,” Ms Madini continued. “Would you like to hear it?” Again, the children agreed enthusiastically. “Well, why don’t we all bring our cushions and make ourselves comfortable?”

Apparently, the Athosians had already donated a dozen or two of their flat sitting cushions for the new school. Teacher and kids took one each and sat down in the middle of the classroom, placing a cushion in the centre for Jack and looked at him with bright, expectant eyes. Jack maneuvered himself into a comfortable position and tried to think of a story they might actually like.

“What would you like to hear about?” he asked.

“About the place where you grew up!” Jinto called. Like all Athosian children, he spoke a grammatically correct, accent free English by now. How they were doing it was beyond Jack, even though Corrigan had repeatedly explained to him that a culture that based everything on oral tradition _needed_ to be good at such things.

“Hmmm, all right, I can do that,” Jack agreed and found to his surprise, that he didn’t mind speaking of his childhood. Not to these kids anyway. “I was born in a place called the Boeshane Peninsula. My parents had moved there before my birth because they wanted to have a simple life…”

And as the children were listening to him in rapt attention, Jack realised that he actually _liked_ Ultima Thule. Sure, the city lay in ruins, but as ruins go, it was a spectacular sight. It also held great promise of knowledge and technology they’d need years, perhaps decades to figure out.

But even more importantly, it held the promise of becoming a _home_.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Back on Atlantis, the minority of the expedition was doing their exploration and research around the clock, too. Even though accommodations on the ship were a lot more comfortable than those in Ultima Thule, people were on the verge of exhaustion already. There were only a handful of them; and the 29-hour day was starting to affect them. As Zelenka had put it, it wasn’t the same if one got four or five hours of sleep in twenty- _four_ or in twenty- _nine_ hours.

“We need Teaboy back here,” Owen growled, putting away medical supplies with the help of Marie Ko, their head nurse. “Him and his coffee. We’re not gonna hold out here without a decent influx of caffeine.”

“There is that,” Martha admitted ruefully and stifled a yawn. “Caffeine pills just don’t bring it, no matter what Doctor Heightmeyer says about it all being in our heads.”

“Shrinks!” Owen scoffed with deep dismay. “What do they know of real life? Listen, can’t you, you know, whine a little to Doctor Shaw? Tell her something about long working hours and exhaustion and all that shit? Something she’d actually _buy_?”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Peter Grodin demanded, dumping another box of… whatever it was onto the table.

Owen snorted. “Right. Cos she’d believe _me_. Little Miss Highfaluting here is the UNIT liaison, not me.”

“You’re just afraid to be dressed down properly,” Grodin grinned at him; then he turned to Martha. “Hey, Zelenka and Moosekian found the desalination system. It’s still working. We’ve already begun desalinizing the sea water and storing them into tanks big enough to supply the whole city, so fresh water won't be a problem.”

“But will we have enough people to operate it?” Martha asked with a frown. “By this rate, the gene carriers will be run ragged in no time.”

“It seems only _some_ of the Ancient technology requires the use of the active gene,” Grodin said. “Other things merely require initialization. Once activated, anyone can work with them. Unfortunately…”

“…unfortunately we never know which piece of tech does what before we’ve given it a try,” Martha finished for him tiredly.

“That about sums it up,” Grodin agreed. “The first time will be hell on us. Hopefully, it will get better afterwards. Zelenka has set up a database where he’s been adding each new piece of tech since we started, marking those that _always_ need a gene carrier to work, like the gateships, those that only needed to be initialized, and the rest. It will be available from every terminal in the city and updated regularly.”

“Useful, that is,” Owen admitted. “Well, I’m done here, so I think I’ll better see that my own stuff gets into the lab Teaboy’s assigned me.”

Martha gave him a little wave of her hand without looking at him. “Go.”

Owen shrugged and walked out of the storage room in search for his own special equipment, liberated from the Hub. Only that he couldn’t find any of the specifically marked boxes.

“Hey!” he yelled at the young, dark-skinned UNIT soldier who seemed to be in charge of distributing medical supplies. “You there! Private…”

“Grey, sir,” the soldier supplied. “Private Steve Grey.”

“Well, Private Steve Grey, here ought to be a lot of boxes, wearing the Torchwood logo and labelled _Fragile_ ,” Owen said. “Where the fuck have you people put them?”

“We stored them in the small room, a little further down the corridor,” Grey answered, gesturing in said direction.

Owen walked to the door, which opened automatically at his approach, peered in and frowned. “There are no boxes.”

Grey jogged down the corridor to him. “That’s impossible! I’ve put them there myself, with Harris,” he touched his headset. “Harris, this is Grey, where are you? And more importantly, where’s the Torchwood stuff we packed into that closet?”

“That’s all here, with me,” the tiny voice of Private Harris answered via headset. “I just don’t really know where _I am_. Must have been some sort of research lab, I reckon, cos there are all sorts of consoles all around me…”

“Make sure you don’t touch anything!” Grey warned him. “You know the protocol.”

“Yeah, yeah, hands off of alien tech unless you’ve got a death wish,” Harris replied. “I don’t have one, all right? I’d like to get back somehow, though. It ain’t very nice in here.”

Grey was about to say something when a section of the wall, right before his eyes, opened up, showing a map of the city. Some spots of it – a great many of them, actually – were glowing in a soft golden light. Owen, too, stared at it, his mouth hanging open.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he whispered. “This is definitely _not_ a closet!

“Not bloody likely,” Grey agreed; then he touched his headset again. “Harris, did a wall panel start to glow when you stepped inside with that last box?”

“Erm… yeah, I think so,” Harris replied nervously. “Why?”

“Did you _touch_ it?” Grey continued, although he could make an educated guess already.

“I… I don’t remember, perhaps, I was curious what those glowing spots were,” Harris admitted. “Then the doors shut, and when they opened again, I was here… wherever _here_ is.”

“Well,” Owen said, “wherever it is, you have my stuff there, and I want it back,” he reached out, ready to touch the screen, but Grey caught his wrist in a vice-like grip.

“Don’t even _think_ about it, Doc!” he warned, touching his headset with his free hand. “Control room, this is Private Grey. I need someone down at the medical storage room; preferably an engineer or a technician with the gene. I think we’ve found something.”

“Acknowledged,” Sergeant Lenoir replied from the Control room. “Doctor Sato is already on her way to you. Sit tight and don’t touch _anything_!”

“Yeah, yeah, as I wouldn’t know that myself,” Grey muttered, but not before breaking the connection. ‘Chuck’ Lenoir was a friendly enough guy but outranked him; so caution was the better part of the value.

“Can you release my hand now?” Owen asked with an unfriendly scowl. “My bones need to recover from your… safety measures.”

“If we all stuck to protocol, we wouldn’t have to search for Harris now,” Grey replied, completely immune against the irate doctor’s death glare.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Before Owen could have thought of an answer, Tosh came running, with Eddie Wong in tow. Grey explained her what he’d figured out so far, and she nodded.

“I think you might have stumbled over some kind of internal transportation system,” she said. “I was expecting to find something like that. This city is also a starship, after all. They _had_ to think of a method to get people and things from one section to another immediately. Running a mile while the ship is under attack wouldn’t be very efficient.”

“True,” Grey allowed. “But how does that help us?”

“Let’s do an experiment and find out,” Tosh touched her headset. “Private Harris, are those boxes still in the… in the _closet_?”

“Yes,” Harris replied.

“Are _you_ still in there?” Tosh continued.

“No, I was glad to get out of there,” Harris admitted.

“No need to panic,” Tosh said. “Can you see the panel on the wall? Yes? Is it still glowing?”

“Yeah, but one spot has a different colour,” Harris answered. “It’s green. The others are all yellow.”

“Good; that must be the place where you started from,” Tosh explained. “Now listen carefully. I want you to get back into the closet, touch the differently coloured spot and wait for the doors to open again, on their own.”

“Are you sure about this, ma’am?” the young soldier didn’t sound convinced.

“Pretty sure,” Tosh replied. “If I’m not mistaken, you ought to show up right here again, together with the boxes.”

“But what if you _are_ mistaken?” Harris asked nervously.

“Then we’ll think of something else,” Tosh said. “Now, pull yourself together and do as I’ve told you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the nervous answer, and then they waited.

Less than ten seconds later, the doors of the small room closed automatically. Another ten seconds or so, and they opened again. Inside, there were about a dozen boxes, wearing the Torchwood logo, and one slightly shaken UNIT soldier: tall, dark-haired, handsome… and completely bewildered.

“What was _that_?” Private Carl Harris asked. “Some kind of transporter?”

Tosh nodded. “It seems so, yeah. Now that we know what we’re looking for, perhaps we can find the layout of the entire network in the database. In any case, these glowing spots must be the individual access points… like stations. You choose your destination by touching the right spot and are transferred immediately.”

Harris broke into a wide grin that suddenly made him look about fourteen years old.

“Cool!” he commented. “Just like the turbolifts in Star Trek… only faster.”

“Actually, this technology is a lot more advanced than the imaginary one behind the turbolifts of the _Enterprise_ ,” Tosh corrected. “According to Trek technobabble, those were simple elevators, only very fast, and they moved both vertically _and_ horizontally. _This_ here… this is something new. Even for science fiction nerds.”

“Whatever you say, Doc,” Harris replied amiably. “It’s still _way_ cool.”

Tosh found herself in complete agreement with that and smiled a little wistfully. It was a strange feeling, being called _Doc_ and considered one of the eggheads again. Strange but pleasant, even though she sometimes missed the close familiarity of Torchwood Three. Plus, Harris reminded her a bit of Tommy Brockles, both in his looks and his youthful enthusiasm...

She stomped down on that memory ruthlessly. She was _not_ going there, not now, not for a very long time yet. Perhaps never.

“All right,” she said, storing the location of the transporter station that led to the abandoned research lab into her PDA. “Go back to your work and expect a great deal of yelling from Captain Magambo, for fooling around with unknown tech. This lab is off-limits for everyone until we had time to do a thorough survey, but that can wait. Right now we have more important things to do.”

“Speaking of which,” Eddie Wong said, “I really ought to go back to the Control room. We’re still identifying some of the consoles here. As Doctor Z likes to say, Ancient tech is extremely redundant.”

Tosh nodded. “Yeah, go, we’re done here. Should anyone need me, I’ll be down in the chair room with Miko and Radek… I mean, with Doctors Kusanagi and Zelenka. We’re currently trying to figure out if Atlantis has any more drones left.”

“Not that would do us much good, without a ZPM to power the chair,” Wong commented on his way out. Tosh shrugged.

“We’ll find a way to solve the power shortage problem, eventually. But if we’re out of drones, _that_ would be a real problem.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
A few dozen decks lower, in a different section of the city, the botanists were surveying the hydroponics gardens of Atlantis… although calling them _hydroponics_ was not the correct term, as Dr. Brown had repeatedly pointed out to the soldiers who all seemed a bit too fond of science fiction terminology.

But she was right, of course. The hydroponics gardens weren’t’ hydroponics at all – they were good, old-fashioned, down-to-Earth hothouses, with beets and honest dirt and all that, even though the dirt had long fallen to dust due to the fact that it hadn’t been watered for ten millennia. That was a merely technical problem, though. They only needed to start the environmental systems again.

The hothouses had been placed into spacious rooms with huge windows to let in the warm sunshine on both sides. There were round, matte glass half-globes embedded in the ceiling every dozen metres or so above the banks – probably the heating or artificial sunlight in case of bad weather – and the pierced tube of the watering system lay in the exact middle of each row. It was almost as thick as a man’s arm, and the small holes where the water was supposed to seep out showed up in several rows on both sides of the tube.

Oksana Selikhova, one of the Russian geologists, had been called back from Athos and was now analyzing soil samples in the adjoining lab, while Doctors Parrish and Brown were selecting seed samples that could be grown in the hothouses. Doctor Mendoza was examining the ten-thousand-year-old plant samples he’d found in stasis storage, and Doctor Yniguez discussed possibilities with Liz Shaw, who’d come for a short visit from Athos to see how the food problem could be solved best.

“Since we couldn’t bring any insect-pollinated plants, as we hadn’t known in advance what sorts of insects we’d find here, all our plants are wind- or self-pollinated,” Yniguez explained. “That limits our diet a bit, but not as much that we’d be lacking any basic nutrients.”

“As long as we only use these hothouses, grain cultivation is out of the question; with the possible exception of corn,” Katie Brown added with a shrug. “We simply don’t have enough room here for growing wheat or rye.”

“Our people can help you to trade with other worlds for grain,” Selena, the Athosian Elder responsible for trade relationships offered. “You can get almost everything for salt here, and since you are sitting in the middle of the ocean, producing salt would not be a problem, I assume.”

“Certainly not; especially as it’s practically a side product of the desalination system,” Dr. Shaw agreed. “We’ll come back to your generous offer. First, however, our botanists need to analyze grain samples, to see if our digestive system would tolerate them. Things that are completely harmless for you might prove dangerous for us – and vice versa. Until then, we need to start growing some basic foodstuffs right away.”

“Soybeans and peanuts first,” Dr. Yniguez said promptly. “Peanuts are self-pollinating and nitrogen-fixing; they’d be good to make this powdered dirt a bit more useful again. And aside from being eaten, they can provide us with oil for cooking… and other things. Soybeans can be fermented, can be oil or protein, depending on our needs, and can be processed into a lot of useful things.”

Cristina Piccoli, their young plant geneticist, frowned. “Wait a minute, aren’t soybeans pollinated by insects?”

“Usually, they are, but they _will_ self-pollinate, if left alone,” Yniguez replied. “We can also sow some plants with parthenocarpy, like eggplants, cucumbers and bananas. Even though they’ll only be of use for us in the second generation.”

“Forgive me,” Selena interrupted, “but what is partheno…?”

“Plants you can seed for the next generation by hand but get the fruit without pollination if necessary,” Yniguez explained.

“Squash and tomatoes can easily be hand-pollinated, since we’re only growing food for less than two hundred people,” Katie Brown added. “And bananas are extremely productive; they produce the most edible calories per square yard.”

Dr. Shaw nodded. “That should be enough for the time being. Hopefully, we’ll find some local plants that prove edible for us – _and_ some animals, because I seriously doubt that people would all happily become vegetarians once we’d run out of dehydrated meat.”

“We can help with that, too,” Selena said. “There are uninhabited worlds that count as excellent hunting grounds. Some had never been inhabited and are reasonably safe. Others were culled by the Wraith completely, the domestic animals gone wild, and going there often locks on the Wraith, but if one is fast and skilled enough, it is worth the risk.”

“Especially if we go there by gateship and keep re-dialling the Gate to keep it open,” Yniguez supported the idea.

“Maybe,” Liz Shaw wasn’t fully convinced. “Still, I’d prefer to play safe for the time being. At least until we’ve settled down properly and established a reliable defence perimeter.”

“What about doing a little survey on _this_ planet?” Dr. Mendoza suggested. “We could look out for an island that’s well isolated from the rest of the local landmasses and grow some grain over there.”

“Wouldn’t the water carry the seeds, together with their potential pathogens, to other islands and continents?” Katie Brown asked.

Mendoza shrugged. “Salt water would take care part of the problem. As fort he rest – if this planet is uninhabited, we can take the risk.”

“Which means, we really need to do that survey,” Liz Shaw added. “I think Captain Harkness will welcome the chance to fly around a little.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Needless to say that Jack was more than happy to return to Atlantis by gateship, taking Ianto with him.

“He needed a break,” he explained simply. To be honest, Ianto _did_ look like someone in dire need of a break.

“And _we_ need coffee,” Owen countered. “What about setting up your shiny new machine, Teaboy? Twenty-nine-hour days are a bitch to get through without caffeine.”

“Cos you think stuffing the workload of twenty-four hours into a twenty-two-hour day is easy?” Ianto asked.

Owen shrugged. “Whatever. We _all_ need coffee. Athosian tea doesn’t do the trick.”

“Later,” Jack interrupted. “I’m taking Ianto with me. As I said, he needs a break. And _I need_ someone who makes the recording for a future map of our surroundings. The coffee must wait. Although,” he added with disarming honesty, “I’d kill for a mug of Ianto’s industrial strength brew right now.”

“Let’s make a compromise,” Dr. Shaw suggested. “You do the survey. When you get back, we’ll let Ianto unpack the coffee machine and celebrate a little.”

“Works for me,” Jack grinned happily. “C’mon, Ianto, lets hit those transporter chambers. I’ve parked the ship on the East Pier.”

“Speaking of that, Doctors Zelenka and Moosekian have found a way to open the roof of the shuttle bay,” Mickey, who’d come to greet Jack, said. “It works like a diaphragm; like the iris on the Earth Stargate. Really cool shit.”

“Zelenka and Moosekian are like a pair of mongooses,” Peter Grodin laughed. “Half the useful things we’ve found so far have been found by them,” he consulted his PDA. “Would you mind to take Nichols and Mendoza with you? They could assess the usefulness of any piece of land you might discover for us.”

“Doctor Nichols is currently on Athos,” Ianto reminded him. “If we are to take him with us, we’ll have to call him back to Atlantis. That will take time.”

“Time enough to unpack your coffee machine and work some caffeine magic?” Jack asked. "Or have you taken the thing to Athos with you?”

Ianto shook his head. “Nah, it’s still here, in storage. I haven’t had the time to fetch it yet.”

“Well, ain’t we lucky?” Jack rubbed his hands in glee. “Go, get it. Liz, you can call back all the people we might need for this little mission, and in the meantime, we can all enjoy coffee heaven.”

“I thought _I was_ the one who’s giving the orders here,” Liz Shaw replied, but her eyes were laughing. “Coffee heaven sound nice, though.”

And so it came that while they were waiting for the arrival of the others from Athos via Stargate, Ianto had the time to unpack the coffee machine, hook it up in Dr. Shaw’s – well, currently Markova’s – office and dig out _one_ pack of ground and vacuum-compressed coffee. He’d have preferred freshly ground beans, but he had to make compromises because of the limited tonnage. And then a most ecstatic time was had by everyone… or, at least, by everyone who liked coffee. The die-hard tea-drinkers gathered around Markova’s samovar, and it was easy to foretell that there would be much teasing and mock-fighting between the two groups in the future.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
About an hour later, the others arrived from Athos, bringing Halling with them, who, as Selena explained, understood a great deal about local grain and its requirements. Everyone got a cup of their preferred beverage, and then the survey mission got on its way.

Another half an hour alter they found the first patch of land – a literal continent of about fifteen million square miles, lying practically on their doorstep. It was a mere twenty-five minutes flight by gateship from ground to ground. The team fanned out to collect plant, soil and water samples. While they were doing their jobs, Jack and Ianto took off by gateship again, searching for other landmasses on that hemisphere.

They found none. They widened the search radius, doing a preliminary sweep over the entire planet. This took several hours, even by the exceptionally fast little ship, but it didn’t matter. The others had enough work to keep themselves busy. They still found no other landmasses. There were a few islands scattered across the equatorial area on the other side of the planet, and – according to the sensors – there ought to be land under both polar caps, but that was all.

Aside from the one continent they’d just found, the planet Lantea was basically a huge ocean.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dr. Yniguez said when Jack got the ship back in radio range to give Atlantis his report. “If the mainland is arable, it could solve a lot of our food production problems in the long run."

“Agreed,” Dr. Shaw said. “Having so much land at our disposal could take care of the grain problem, for starters. _If_ we find the right people to grow it, that is. We weren’t exactly preparing to do agriculture in the traditional way. We were thinking in the terms of hydroponics, mostly.”

“Our people can help,” Halling offered. “I am certain that some from those tribes who prefer a more settled life to hunting can be persuaded to move to this place. It would be… beneficial for us to live this close to the city of the Ancestors.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Dr. Shaw allowed. “Do you think your people can get used to a world where the days are so much longer, though?”

“Some of us go and live on different planets, when there are not enough suitable spouses within the tribe,” Halling explained. “We do not practice this all the time, but sometimes it is necessary, for the good of the children.”

“Keeping the gene pool healthy, “Owen commented. “I guess Athosians adapt a lot easier than we do. And since they ain’t depending on artificial means, they’re probably much more robust health-wise, too.”

“Besides, local crops would get used easier to the biotope of the mainland than anything we’ve brought from Earth,” Dr. Yniguez added. “Since they’re being traded between the various local people from world to world anyway, I don’t think bringing them here would cause any harm.”

“Very well, then,” Dr. Shaw said. “Return to Atlantis when you’re finished with the survey. We’ll discuss the options with the Athosian Elders, once we’re back home, and then we’ll see what our next step should be.

Back _home_. Jack really liked the sound of _that_. He hadn’t had a home since he’d gotten stuck on 19th century Earth, save from his short-lived marriage with Alice’s mother. It was time to build one again.


	15. Serpents in Paradise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 14 - SERPENTS IN PARADISE**

The discovery of the mainland caused great excitement by both the Athosians and the expedition members. While they were no plans on giving up Ultima Thule just yet, everyone was relieved to know that those working on Atlantis wouldn’t have to gate from planet to planet for fresh food.

“Besides,” Corrigan added, “perhaps one day the Athosians will choose to move into Ultima Thule; when they’ve re-introduced the gene to their population. This is their inheritance, after all – as much as Atlantis is ours.”

Which, as much as – for example – Captain Price disliked the idea of handing over the Ancient city to the locals, it _was_ a distinct possibility. The Athosians began to show an avid interest for their heritage. Representatives from other tribes, living scattered all over the planet, started arriving all times, now that it seemed to be reasonably safe. Some of them, those with more a settled lifestyle than Teyla’s tribe, were more than willing to move to Lantea, eventually – where they hoped to be safer from the Wraith.

Speaking of which, the locals all seemed to be baffled that the newcomers’ moving into the old city hadn’t lured the monsters into coming yet. However, nobody had the slightest doubt that they would come, sooner or later. So Teyla and the other elders saw to it that ample food reserves were stored in the old caves, and held drills, especially for the younger members of the tribe, so that they would reach the safety of those caves in the shortest possible time.

That included the Earth people, because, as the Athosians stated, only a very thick layer of hard rock could give sufficient protection against what they called _the culling beam_. They couldn’t quite explain what exactly _that_ was, but Markova assumed it had to be something akin to Asgard beaming technology: efficient and very hard to escape from.

As there seemed to be general consensus about the Wraith being lured on by advanced technology (with the simple goal to destroy it before the food would become too belligerent), Jack was concerned about the gateships parking right at the Gate. Especially as there was a good chance that the Wraith would actually recognize them for what they were.

“I remember having seen some sort of hangars at the other end of the valley,” he said to Ianto, meaning their shared vision via ghost machine. “We really should check them out. I’m fairly sure we’d be able to hide the ships in there.”

“This must be your lucky day, then,” Ianto grinned at him. “Sergeant Bates had just filed a report that they’ve searched and cleaned from Wraith _surprises_ the entire main street. If we take a no-gene engineering crew with us, we’re free to go.”

“Oh, good!” Jack grinned back at him happily. “You don’t happen to know which of the teams would be available right now?”

Ianto raised an eyebrow. “Of course I know that, sir,” he replied in a lecturing tone. “I know _everything_ , you should remember that.”

“So, who is it, then?” Jack asked impatiently.

Ianto studied his PDA. “Right now, that would be Doctor Kavanagh and that Greek system technician, Basile Siderakis. And _accidentally_ , they’re waiting for us at Gateship Three.”

“What a coincidence!” Jack couldn’t stop grinning as they started jogging towards the Gate.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Twenty minutes later they were in the air, approaching the further end of the valley rapidly. Ianto mentally called up the ship’s HUD, but all the holographic screen could show them were a group of large, low buildings with flattened domes, surrounded by stretches of pavement that had been mostly overgrown by moss or short, grass. One dome was partially open, showing that once it had been able to retract, allowing access to the building for small aircraft… or spacecrafts, as the case might be.

“It looks like a spacedock from Star Trek,” Private Yamato, whom Bates had insisted to take with them, _just in case_ , commented. Kavanagh snorted but didn’t say anything…yet.

“This dome must operate like the outer doors of Atlantis' shuttle bay,” Ianto replied. “It's probably been stuck open since the Ancients left.”

“We should get closer and take a look,” Jack said.

Kavanagh gave him a bewildered look. “And what if that thing snaps shut?” he demanded.

Jack grinned at him unrepentantly. “Then you get to say _I told you so_ ,” he answered.

“Yeah, because that would be _really_ helpful,” Kavanagh countered sourly. But he stopped protesting, which, as Ianto had learned by now, was a sure sign that he, too, was very curious.

Jack guided the gateship down, towards the half-open dome. It seemed to have been built of the same, once translucent white stone as the rest of the city, now covered by red lichen and moss that had crept up the sides and was growing in the cracks of the alabaster-like material.

“It looks reassuringly stable,” Ianto commented, “but I wouldn’t go all the way in just yet, lest we trigger something inside.”

“I don’t intend to,” Jack answered him, having the gateship hover over the dark opening. 

The little vessel’s outer lights came on, splaying over the building’s interior, reflecting from a metallic floor and another set of bay doors leading to a lower level, also wedged partially open. Kavanagh leaned over Jack’s shoulder in his eagerness to see more.

“Can you cast more light at the far wall?” he asked, his voice tight with excitement.

Jack adjusted the angle, tilting the nose of the ship downwards for a better view, and the lights now fell at the requested area. They could see the familiar racks and walkways for an Ancient shuttle bay, almost identical to that of Atlantis… only empty.

“It seems we’ve found their spaceport all right,” he commented softly. Now _this_ was close to the jackpot. Only a working ZedPM would have been better.

Kavanagh nodded. “We should call in more engineering teams,” he said. “We need to check those other domes. Perhaps we can find more gateships; or there could have been a repair facility, with spare parts, or even blueprints… that would come in really handy. We’re still light years from understanding how these ships work.”

“I can do that,” Jack said agreeably. “Do you wanna wait for them or go in right away?”

“Oh, I don’t believe we should waste any time,” Kavanagh replied with ill-concealed eagerness to get in and take a look. “The two of you need to wait until we’ve secured the building, though.”

“So, what’s new?” Jack asked philosophically. “Go, do your job. I’ll call for reinforcements.”

Kavanagh barely waited for the gateship to land; the back door hadn’t even hit the ground when he was already jumping out and hurrying towards the building, scanner stretched out before him carefully, Siderakis and Yamato in hot pursuit, doing the same. Jack called the Magistrate, made a preliminary report and asked for more teams, which Captain Price was only too happy to provide. As a professional soldier, she understood the necessity of keeping one’s tactical advantages safe.

The additional teams arrived within the hour, including an excited Dr. Zelenka who’d been called back from Atlantis to compare his extensive notes about the functioning of the shuttle bay there with these hangars. There seemed to be little difference. Once initialized, the hangar doors opened for everyone by simply using the right switch – founding _that_ , however, took them almost two hours.

They found no other gateships in any of the other domes, which didn’t really surprise Jack. He’d _seen_ via ghost machine how all those little ships had left Ultima Thule, with the last survivors on board. The city had been evacuated meticulously, and the inhabitants had removed anything that hadn’t been built in solid stone. Even the library of the education centre, for which they’d had such high hopes in the beginning, only contained data about soft sciences: literature, agriculture, art and the likes.

Things that would have been no use for the Wraith.

Halling and the other Keepers of Tradition were ecstatic, of course. Given the fact that they were able to _read_ the written stuff in the library, it was a never-depleted source of knowledge for them. Soon, they formed a tightly-knit unit with the anthropologists and linguists to study Ancient culture; another one with the botanists to study Ancient agriculture; and a third one with the teachers to set up the best curriculum for their children to learn all that would be profitable for them to know.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Soon, children and young adults from other tribes began to come to Ultima Thule, to _sit at the feet of the Keepers_ , as the old Athosian expression said, and to learn. Teyla watched the events unfold with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, she was happy to see contact between the various tribes from the different settlements to grow more intense. Together, they were stronger, and developing marriage bonds with people they hadn’t previously intermarried with kept the gene pole healthy, which was an ever-present concern for them.

On the other hand, she couldn’t shake off her growing unease; the fear that giving up their self-inflicted isolation would lead to a major disaster. They’d chosen their semi-nomadic lifestyle for their own protection, and so far it had worked as well as it was possible, given the superior power of the Wraith. Right now, however, this was no longer the case. They hadn’t even moved the whole camp to the summer pastures – only the shepherds had left with the animals -, something that had not happened for… well, as far back as the Keepers could remember.

“We have grown careless and comfortable with your arrival,” she said to Jack, worry clearly written in her exotic features. “That is a dangerous combination. One that has led to the destruction of many flourishing worlds.”

“But you can sense the Wraith coming, can’t you?” Jack asked. “That would give you – and us all – proper forewarning, right?”

“Yes, I can feel them, but only when they have already passed the Stargate,” Teyla had picked up the Earth name for the Ring of the Ancestors some time ago, as it was shorter and described the device better; Athosians had a keen sense for semantics, which wasn1t surprising for a culture that mostly relied on oral traditions. “By the time I can warn my people, the culling has usually already begun. I wish I could look just a little further into the future. Just far enough to know _when_ they are coming.”

“Well…” Jack said after a lengthy pause,” there _may_ be a way. A little more than a year ago, we’ve discovered a piece of alien technology, back on Earth, that could show us the echoes of past events… and those of possible futures. The only problem is, we can’t know for sure how reliable it is.”

“Have you brought this… device with you?” Teyla asked. Jack nodded.

“Yes; I’ve even used the part that shows the past when we first set foot in Ultima Thule. That’s how I knew about the hangars in advance. The problem is, no-one but Ianto knows that the other part, the one that shows future possibilities, still exists. Doctor Shaw ordered me to destroy it. She deemed it too dangerous.”

“Foreknowledge is always dangerous,” Teyla said. “So is defying your Elders. Will she exile you when she learns that you disobeyed her?”

Jack shrugged. "I don’t think so. They _need_ me, after all. Is that how your people punish disobedience?”

“Only if someone endangers the clan or the tribe,” Teyla said seriously. “Which you might be doing when you are tampering with the future. I believe you _should_ tell her – how else is she supposed to trust you ever again?”

“Yeah, but if I _do_ tell her, she’ll insist that I destroyed the device,” Jack pointed out.

Teyla nodded. “Then that is what you must do. She is your Elder, and she would have her reasons; sound ones, I assume, knowing her even as little as I do. She might surprise you, though; have you tried to plead your cause in this matter?”

Jack shook his head. “No; she was quite adamant the only time we discussed the device. She would be even more adverse now that I have misled her.”

“Which would be your fault, would it not?” Teyla asked. “I would be most displeased, too, should a hunter of my tribe try misleading me this way. But perhaps it would help your case if you could prove the usefulness of the device.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Jack asked sarcastically.

“By allowing me to look into the future,” Teyla replied simply. “If it can help us to foresee a Wraith attack, it _could_ persuade Doctor Shaw to allow you and a few selected people to use it.”

Jack gave her a long, searching look. “You _are_ very concerned about an immediate attack, aren’t you?”

Teyla nodded. “It is coming. I can feel it in my very bones. If we can learn _when_ it will come, we can take precautions.”

Jack thought about it for a moment; then he nodded. “All right. But we’ll keep this between the two of us for the time being.”

“I shall not tell Doctor Shaw – or anyone else,” Teyla promised. “This is something _you_ will have to do.”

Jack shook his head in mild exasperation. “You never give up, do you?”

“No,” she answered simply. “Not when I know I am right.”

“Very well,” Jack laughed. “We’ll postpone this discussion _after_ we’ve given the ghost machine a try,” he touched his headset. “Ianto? Are you alone? Good. Take out that _special_ containment box and bring it to me. Teyla and I are just outside the Athosian village, right in front of the Stargate. Yes, I do know what I’m doing, so please hurry up.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
It took Ianto almost an hour to finally arrive – and he was _not_ happy.

“I’d like to remind you, Jack, that I’ve got an ungodly workload and only twenty-two hours a day to get it done,” he grumbled. “I really can’t afford wasting my time with walking back from the city to the Gate, just to bring you something you shouldn’t fool around with in the first place.”

“Forgive us,” Teyla laid a placating hand upon Ianto’s forearm. “He is doing this at my request. I have the bad feeling that the Wraith will return, soon, and I would like to have it confirmed – or contradicted.”

“It might _not_ work,” Ianto warned. “The device can only show a _possible_ future.”

“It is still our best shot,” Teyla answered seriously.

“All right,” Ianto said with a shrug and a sigh, and handed Jack a small package, wrapped in isolation material. “Under protest, I want to add. _And_ I’m going in with you.”

“Ianto, we’ve discussed this before,” Jack began, but Ianto cut him into the word.

“Yes, we did, and I told you in no uncertain terms: you aren’t going _anywhere_ without me. Not into the past, not into the future, not into a foreign galaxy… nowhere. You better get used to it.”

Jack shook his head in exasperation and looked at Teyla for support… in vain.

“He is your bondmate,” she said. “It is his right.”

Jack rolled his eyes at being backstabbed like that by a supposed ally and unwrapped the package. Then he fetched the other component from its hiding place within Gateship #3 and put the pieces together with a barely audible click. In its completed form, the device was still smaller than his two palms.

“Let’s do it before I change my mind,” he said. “Lay your hands on the surface with me and think of the Wraith.”

The other two obeyed and Jack activated the device. Reality wavered around them, warbled and changed abruptly. The bright sunlight was gone, darkness surrounded them; darkness that was barely cut by the sickle of the new moon. They were in the Athosian village, the entire population of which was fleeing into the nearby woods.

Bates and his Marines were settled into strategic defensive positions around them. Smitty and Rickman were carrying M160 rocket launchers, the others stood, P90s braced against their shoulders, eyes locked on the sky. None of the UNIT soldiers were visible.

From somewhere about them, a loud hum – or rather the whine of engines pushed to their limits – could be heard. It became louder and louder, sounding almost like a scream as a gleaming shape, like an arrow tip, ripped across the treetops… followed by a second, and then a third one. Jack and Ianto realized these had to be the Wraith darts. The name was more than fitting.

The malevolent-looking little spacecrafts swooped back and forth over the Athosian village. It was as if they were searching for something. Suddenly, Halling stumbled forward from between the trees, wide-eyed and desperate, calling out for his son. Overhead, one of the Wraith ships made a second pass, coming on low right behind him and a few others who were still running towards the tree line. A wide white beam flared from the underside of the ship and swept across the ground like a searchlight. Halling and the others were running for their lives in stark terror, but couldn’t reach the relative safety of the trees. The beam captured them – and they were gone. Just disappeared, as if the light had disintegrated them in some bizarre “Captain Power” fashion, or scooped them up inside the ship.

The Marines opened fire, but the damn ship seemed to absorb the bullets or whatnot. The lead one turned for another pass, the other two wings joining in in an intricate pattern that raced across the ground and scooped up everyone in their path. Now Jack and Ianto finally understood what the Athosians meant by _culling_.

The Wraith were literally _harvesting_ people, like livestock. Living, feeling people…

Smitty, an M160 perched on his shoulder, stood frozen with panic as he stared into the night. What he’d just witnessed clearly overloaded his brain capacity – he reacted like the little boy he truly was under that big, hulking Marine exterior. It was evident that he wouldn’t be able to get over his shock without help.

Breaking cover, Bates ran to him and yelled right into his face. “Smitty, snap out of it, damn you!”

Pale and shaking like a leaf, Smitty whispered like a frightened child. “T-they’re e-everyone, Sergeant!”

“Wake up!” Bates barked, jerking his thumb at the Wraith ship overhead. “Take that fucking thing down.”

Smitty, used to obey a direct order, even if his conscious mind wasn’t currently functioning, pulled himself together, lifted the rocket launcher as if it were but a rifle and fired at the enemy. It was a good shot; the Wraith ship exploded in a bright fireball and fell out of the sky.

“That’s one,” Bates said dispassionately. “Now for the…”

Before he could have finished the sentence, the sudden whine of engines streaked behind him. Another Dart was diving in, its surface gleaming pale against the night sky. A broad white beam was slicing towards their position, sweeping a wide area; and then the ship banked hard, screaming up into the sky.

Bates, Smitty and another two of the Marines were gone. Not dead, just gone, like Halling had been only minutes earlier.

Behind them, where the Athosian village had stood, were only burning tents and dead bodies, scattered all over the place.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Their shared vision ended abruptly, and they all experienced temporary nausea when they were jerked back into the here and now without forewarning.

“Well,” Teyla commented softly, “that was… intense. Is the transition almost this unpleasant?”

“Not according to my people who’ve already tried it,” Jack, still a little green around the gills himself, replied. “They said it was abrupt, but they never complained about any side effects.”

“Perhaps the device is only meant to deal with _one_ consciousness at any given time,” Ianto suggested. “Perhaps the three of us were simply too much for it.”

“Still, it delivered us the warning we needed,” Jack turned to Teyla. “Can you make a guess when we can expect the attack?”

Teyla thought about that for a moment. “The shepherd moon was still in the first phase of its cycle,” she finally said. "We have just had the last moonless night two days ago… I would estimate they will come in a week’s time. Perhaps a little later.”

“We must prepare ourselves quickly,” Ianto said. “I’m afraid, Jack, we _must_ take this news to Doctor Shaw. It’s her decision whatever will happen next.”

“Aside from me getting my arse kicked into several new incarnations?” Jack asked.

“Aside from that, yes, but that will be the least of our problems in the immediately future,” Ianto replied soberly.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
As it could be expected, Liz Shaw didn’t take the news well… to put it mildly.

“You see, Jack, this is exactly what I was afraid of,” she said in clear disappointment. “The Brigadier had warned me that you’ve got difficulties with authority that isn’t your own; for _that_ , I was prepared. I never thought you’d blatantly act behind my back, though, and in a matter I’ve expressly told you _not_ to do.”

“I know,” Jack answered ruefully. “I’m sorry, Liz, I really am. I just thought…”

“You just thought you were better suited to deal with alien technology than anyone else in this expedition, and you’re probably right,” Dr. Shaw interrupted. “But that’s not the point here, is it? The point is that you now answer to _me_ , Jack, whether you like it or not. If you can’t accept that, I see little hope for us to work together in the future.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack offered again. Liz Shaw sighed.

“I actually believe that you are; you’re a good person, despite your faults. Still, you’d probably do the same in a similar situation – and that’s my problem with you. I’d hate to lose you, but this cannot happen again. Or there will be consequences.”

“What consequences?” Jack snorted. “Are you gonna throw me out?”

“I hope it won’t come to that,” she said with a clear warning in her voice, “but if there’s no other solution, then yes, I might do it. I’m sure a man of your abilities will find a fitting occupation in such a big galaxy as this one,” she sighed again. “We’ll have words about this, Jack. Serious ones. But not right now. Now we have to decide what to do about the upcoming Wraith attack. We can’t allow any of our people – _or_ the Athosians, for that matter – to be taken by those monsters.”

“I regret to say this, but you have little to no choice to prevent it,” Teyla said, with the fatalistic acceptance of a race that had lived its whole existence under the shadow of the vampiric aliens.

“We can shoot down their Darts,” Jack pointed out. “They can’t take a hit from a rocket launcher any better than a human-made aircraft, as we’ve just seen.”

“Shooting down he Darts is like a drop on a hot stone,” Teyla said. “There are hundreds of them on every single Hive Ship.”

“Then we’ll have to shoot the bloody Hive Ship they belong to out of the sky,” Jack shrugged.

“And how are we supposed to do _that_?” Ianto asked.

“Tosh says these gateships have their own perception filter and can generate an invisibility field,” Jack explained. “Something like a cloaking device. We sneak onto their Hive Ship, place one of the _naquadah_ warheads as near to their hyperdrive as possible, and run like hell before the whole thing goes up like a supernova.”

“That’s still assuming we _can_ figure out where to find the Hive Ship in the first place,” Ianto said.

Jack shrugged again. “They come through the Gate. Doesn’t the DHD file away the Gate addresses recently used?”

“It does,” Liz Shaw said. “But how is that going to help us? The whole thing hasn’t actually _happened_ yet.”

“I’m sure our first reaction would be to check the address to follow them,” Jack said. “So, someone must go forward in time again, to see what we’d find.”

“Assuming I’d authorize this insane plan of yours, whom would you expose to that device again?” Liz Shaw asked.

Jack looked at his spouse apologetically. “Well, Ianto’s very good with numbers,” he began, but Teyla interrupted him.

“No. _I shall go_. I have learned to memorize Gate addresses since my early childhood. I have got a better chance to recognize and remember it.”

“That certainly makes sense,” Liz Shaw admitted. “Well, if you’re really sure you want to do this…”

“No,” Teyla said slowly. “I most certainly do not _want_ to repeat the experience. It was not pleasant. But I _need_ to do this, as I am best suited for that.”

“Very well,” Liz Shaw said with a sigh. “Let’s give it a try. I must ask you, however, _not_ to reveal the existence of this device to anyone else. Even of our people, Jack and his old team are the only ones to know about it, as they were the ones who found it in the first place.”

Teyla nodded in agreement. ”I do not wish my people to experiment with unreliable foreknowledge, either,” she said. “That could cause great harm, if dealt with unprepared or without the necessary wisdom.”

The two women, so utterly different of age, origins and education, exchanged a long look of profound understanding.

“One more thing, Jack,” Liz Shaw then said. “When Teyla is done, I want this device to be handed over to me. In a proper containment box. And this time, I’ll check personally if you’ve given me the real item. No more tricks.”

“Believe me, Doctor Shaw, you don’t want to try it,” Ianto said quietly.

The old lady gave him an icy look.

“With you, I will also have words, Mr. Jones,” that she didn’t call Ianto by his first name, as usual, clearly showed her anger and disappointment with him. “On a purely personal level, I can understand that you’d support your husband first and everyone else would come after that. As the one who used to trust you and relied on you, however, I am deeply disappointed with you. I need you in too many places to fire you, obviously; but if you want me to trust you _ever_ again, you’ll have to make efforts to win my trust back. _Serious_ efforts. Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ianto replied, ashamed.

“And I shall bring you the device myself, Doctor Shaw, as soon as I am done,” Teyla promised. Liz Shaw nodded.

“Thank you. Give her the device, Jack, and let’s do this.”

“I’m not sure it will show us what we need to know _here_ ,” Jack said. “Previous experience proves that the ghost machine shows past and future events related to the place where it’s used. Teyla should return to the Gate and stand near the DHD, if we want to know where the Wraith would be gone.”

“That’s doable,” Dr. Shaw said. “In that case, however, we need to seal off the immediate area around the Gate, while she’s using the device. See into it, Jack… and be quick. I want this to be over as soon as possible.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Teyla Emmagan stood at the DHD of the Stargate, the strange alien device smooth and almost weightless in her hand. Captain Harkness had ordered the soldiers with those strange red caps to seal off the area, so she was now completely alone. She looked at the device uncertainly. As a rule, she was not easily frightened, but this device… it filled her with dread. It was not _natural_ , to force foreknowledge to come to one with the help of technology.

Still, this seemed to be the only way she could save her people, and so she activated the device with the button Captain Harkness had shown her, focusing her thoughts on the Wraith and their hypothetical departure after the culling.

This time, the transit was surprisingly smooth. Darkness enveloped her at once, the shepherd moon hanging low and thin like a silver sickle on the night sky. All of a sudden, the Gate came on again, the symbols lighting up on the dialling device. Teyla turned to look at it, recognizing the symbols, trying to burn them into her mind…

… but then she spotted two Wraith Darts coming directly towards her, and even though she _knew_ she was only seeing the echoes of a _possible_ future, she panicked. The fear of the Darts stuck too deep in her bones, like by everyone else on Athos.

What was even worse, unexpectedly, she could feel, could _hear_ the thoughts of those monsters, like the murmurs of some far-away waterfall. Thoughts of greed and cruelty, and an overwhelming feeling of all-encompassing hunger. 

Hunger… that seemed to be the primary motivation of the Wraith. Hunger and the urge to find new, rich feeding grounds… which they _would_ find, as soon as they’d laid hand on the city of the Ancestors. Because Atlantis was the only gateway to Earth… to millions upon millions of lives to feed their ever-hungry progeny.

Teyla shivered, imagining the sheer magnitude of death and destruction an entire armada of Hive Ships could cause on such a densely populated world. The Wraith plague was terrible enough, even at its limited extent in the Pegasus galaxy, while the vast majority of them were still asleep. Should they awake and fall over an unprotected planet like a bunch of vultures… it was a scenario beyond imagination, beyond her worst nightmares. And she was someone familiar with nightmares.

Would the Wraith manage to find Earth, there would be no way to stop them, in either galaxy. She could not allow that. She was the protector of her tribe, and by protecting these Earth people who now lived on Atlantis, she protected her own.

She forced herself to turn back to the DHD, ignoring the Wraith Darts that swept over her, through the Gate, to return to whatever place they called home. She needed to remember the symbols. If the Earth people were indeed capable of destroying a Hive Ship, she had to remember that address to get them there in the first place. If she didn’t, the odds to find the Hive would be practically nothing.

She’d memorised the sequence of the first six symbols, when she was roughly torn from the vision – only to fall into unconsciousness from the shock of it.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Gwen Cooper hated living on Athos. It wasn’t life – it was a virtual prison. Because of the freakish gene she happened to have, she was restricted to certain buildings of Ultima Thule, where there wasn’t anything to do to begin with. The whole thing was only interesting for the geeks anyway, cos honestly, what could a girl do in a ten-thousand-year-old town, ninety-five per cent of which lay in ruins?

The Athosian village wasn’t any better. The locals led a primitive life, worked from sunrise to sunset with their herds, on the scattered fields, or hunting, or practicing that idiotic staff-fighting of theirs – as if mere staffs could have been any help against malevolent aliens, armed to the teeth. Also, the village stank. It wasn’t even a village, just a camp of ugly tents, populated with boring people, with whom one couldn’t lead any reasonable discussion. They knew _nothing_ about whatever might exist beyond the limits of their rustic lives.

Gwen had repeatedly asked to be sent back to Atlantis. At least Atlantis was _clean_. And _comfortable_. And the Lantean planet had a twenty-nine-hour day, so one didn’t age so rapidly there as on Athos. Unfortunately, Jack had refused her request every time – even laughed himself silly over that last argument.

“I can’t understand it,” she complained to Andy; the two were patrolling the wooded area beyond the Stargate, which was every bit as boring as practically everything else on this bloody planet. “I mean, I have the gene, haven’t I? And I’ve worked with them for more than a year – I know alien tech as well as Tosh or Suzie or Owen, right? I’d be so much more useful on Atlantis.”

“Perhaps he wanted at least _some_ of his old team around,” Andy replied good-naturedly.

Gwen thought about it, and her smile became speculative. “Perhaps he thought it would be boring, with only Ianto as his company,” she said.

Andy shot her an amused look. “You never give up, do you? You’ve been after him since you ran into that Torchwood operation, a year and a half ago. Reality check, girl: he’s _married_ Ianto!”

“Yeah, cos otherwise they’d gotten in trouble with the Marines,” Gwen dismissed his objection. “He’s always _lusted_ after Ianto; and I was with Rhys, then. Jack respected that. But I’ve always been his confidante; he always chose me to talk to. He told me things nobody else from the team knew… like the fact that he cannot die. Cos he knew I’d never tell anyone.”

“You’ve just told me,” Andy pointed out. Gwen waved off his concern.

“That’s different. We’re friends, mates, ain’t we? And you ain’t telling anyone, right?”

“Of course not,” Andy promised automatically; he was the keeper of Gwen’s many little secrets. Then he frowned. “Hey, what do you mean he cannot die? How’s that possible?”

Gwen shrugged. “Nobody really knows how. Something happened to him in the past, and now, he can’t die. Well, he _does_ die, actually; he just always comes back.”

“That’s just… creepy,” Andy declared, after having digested the unlikely piece of news for several long minutes.

Gwen just shrugged again. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I hope not,” Andy replied honestly. “Cos, you know, _that_ would be even creepier.”

They laughed, reaching the border of the wooded area, beyond which the relatively wide lighting lay, with the Stargate in the middle. Unexpectedly, the balding, middle-aged UNIT Sergeant whose name Gwen could never remember – Zbrigw… something, it was even weirder than that of Dr. Zelenka – stepped forth to block their way in a friendly yet stern manner.

“Sorry, this area is temporarily off-limits,” he said with an accent that, again, vaguely remembered that of Dr. Zelenka; the man was of Polish origins. “Captain’s orders.”

Gwen gave the man her best, innocent, gap-toothed little-girl-smile. That usually worked with older men like a charm.

“Certainly that wouldn’t mean our own people?” she said, wide-eyed. “Not Captain Harkness’ own team!”

“Afraid so, Missy,” the Sergeant, apparently immune against the Lolita act, replied. “Captain Harkness has expressly forbidden _anyone_ to enter the area, until further orders. You can ask _him_ if you don’t believe me.”

“Oh, I certainly will,” Gwen smiled at the man again, giving Andy the sign that meant under police constables _distract him while I attack from behind_. Not that she’d want to actually hurt the Sergeant, of course. She only needed an opening to slip through.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on, Sergeant Zbigniewski?” Andy asked dutifully.

Gwen suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. That was Andy for you; he could remember the weirdest names without effort. And while it came in handy in his line of work as a police constable – they’d often had to deal with the same incorrigible culprits – it frustrated the hell out of his colleagues with less perfect memories.

At least it had always frustrated _Gwen_. Right now, it was useful, though.

“Not a clue,” the UNIT soldier told Andy readily enough. That was another thing about Andy: people always seemed to give him information readily. “All I know is that Captain Harkness and that Athosian woman, Teyla, wanted to try something with the DHD. Something other people would only be a distraction with.”

 _Teyla_? Gwen thought as she was deftly maneuvering herself out of the Sergeant’s immediate field of view, while Zbigniewski was chatting with Andy. Jack had something running with _Teyla_? And that only a couple of months after having married _Ianto_? Well, she’d always known that Jack would shag everything on two legs, but _this_ was a bit inconsiderate, even for him.

This, she _had_ to see. She simply had to.

Using a moment when Zwegh… Zbrig… whatever his name was spelled, turned his back to her, she slipped away, darting from the wooded area directly towards the Stargate. She ignored the Sergeant’s angry call – how in hell had he noticed her getting away so soon? Those red caps had to be better than she’d given them credit for.

It didn’t matter. She’d gained a considerable start already, and she was sure they wouldn’t shoot her. Jack wouldn’t let her come to any harm. She ran as far as she could, giving her best to reach the Gate before they’d catch up with her. She might not be a geek or a tech wizard, but running was something she could do better than most. It came with the job of being a police constable. An ex-police constable. Whatever.

She _did_ reach the Gate before they’d have caught up with her. To her disappointment, she couldn’t see Jack anywhere, though. Only that annoying Athosian woman, that Teyla, was standing near the DHD, as if frozen in time, her eyes wide open but clearly not registering her surroundings. And in her hands…

 _No_. That was _not_ possible. Where did the ghost machine come from? Jack never told her they’d bring it to Atlantis, and he _would_ have told her, wouldn’t he? She’d always been privy to Jack’s secrets, even if the others weren’t. 

So, it had to be those UNIT blokes. They’d always tried to boss Torchwood around, even though they had no idea what was _really_ going on in Cardiff. Someone of them idiots might have thought bringing this bloody machine would be a good idea; they’d taken their hands on the Torchwood Archives, after all.

A good idea! She shivered with the remembered horror of having intentionally killed that pathetic old man because of what the ghost machine had shown her previously.

But where did Teyla have the thing from? Had she stolen it, believing it to be a weapon, or some sort of ornament for her shaggy tent? Or did one of the UNIT people give it to her, to see how an alien would react to it? Didn’t they know how dangerous it was?

Gwen truly didn’t like Teyla – the woman had a condescending attitude that made her trigger finger itch – but she couldn’t let her be misused for some dubious experiment. That would have been morally wrong. And Gwen Cooper had always been the moral compass of Torchwood, hadn’t she?

“You shouldn’t play with this thing, it’s dangerous,” she told Teyla, yanking the ghost machine from her unresisting hands. “Give it to me; I know how to deal with it.”

She was a little surprised when Teyla abruptly collapsed in front of her, eyes rolling backward in her head and her breathing stopping.


	16. Into the Fire

**CHAPTER 15 - INTO THE FIRE**

Jack could barely trust his eyes when he saw Gwen barrelling out of the woods and tearing the ghost machine away from Teyla. How in seven hells did the woman get here, and why hadn’t she been stopped by the soldiers? 

His surprise soon turned into shock, however, as Teyla collapsed and stopped breathing. He rushed to her side, only moments before Andy Davidson and Sergeant Zbigniewski would come running, obviously in hot pursuit of Gwen. Well, that explained the not having stopped her part, at least.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Andy was breathing heavily. “I had no idea she was planning something like this… what _has_ she done anyway?”

“Something monumentally stupid,” Jack growled angrily. “Something that might kill Teyla, and might get killed us all, unless Teyla can tell us what she’s seen.”

“I’m calling for a doctor,” Andy offered, but Jack shook his head.

“No; getting a doctor from the city would take too long. I’m taking her to Atlantis; Owen knows the effects of the device better than any of his colleagues. Dial the Gate. And Sergeant,” he turned to Zbigniewski, “no-one is to learn about what’s just happened here – _especially_ not the Athosians. I’ll explain everything to those who need to know later. Other than that, all this is strictly confidential.”

The Sergeant nodded. “Understood, Captain.” 

He’d served UNIT during all his long and distinguished career; he was used to dealing with weird alien shit. He took the device from Gwen gingerly and handed it to Jack, who deactivated and pocketed it.

“What about Gwen?” Andy asked.

“She’ll come with me,” Jack said grimly, “as I clearly can’t trust her _not_ to screw up without constant supervision. I thought she’d learned by now when to leave things that aren’t her bloody business well alone. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“But Jack, I only wanted to help!” Gwen protested, teary-eyed. “I thought…”

“No,” Jack interrupted harshly. “You _didn’t_ think. That’s your problem. You _never_ think. You’re so fucking sure you know everything better that you never consider the possible consequences.”

The Gate kawhooshed open. Jack used his wrist strap to transmit his IDC and scooped Teyla’s body up in his arms.

“Go!” he ordered and, for a change, Gwen obeyed without further protest. The Gate shut down after them. Andy looked at the Sergeant in concern.

“I can smell trouble brewing,” he said seriously.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Needless to say that Owen was less than happy about having to deal with someone severely traumatized by the ghost machine. His own experiences with the device had been fairly traumatic as well, and he couldn’t even guess what kind of effect a violently interrupted transit could have on the human nervous system.

That Teyla wasn’t one hundred per cent identical to Earth humans and thus he couldn’t be sure how she would react to standard medication only made things worse.

“She’s in shock all right,” he said, running he newly identified Ancient medical scanner over Teyla’s unresponsible body. “I can’t detect any physical harm, though. No apparent brain damage – that’s the good news. The bad news is: I have no idea whether she can wake up from the coma… and if yes, _when_.”

“You _must_ find a way to wake her up,” Jack insisted. “In a week or two, there will be a Wraith attack on Athos. Teyla is the only one who saw the DHD at their departure. _If_ she can tell us the Gate address, we can deal the Wraith a pre-emotive strike. If not…”

“… a lot of folks will be eaten by space vampires,” Owen finished for him. “I understand the odds, Jack. But you must also understand that she might end up with permanent brain damage if I try to force her out of her coma. She won’t be of any use for us – or anyone else – as a slobbering idiot.”

“So, there’s nothing we can do for her?” Jack asked, despairing. He wouldn’t dare to use the device again, or let anyone else use it, unless they absolutely _had_ to; no-one could tell how the interrupted transit worked on the machine itself.

“Nothing _we_ can do,” Martha replied. “However, Carson told me about an Athosian method their healers use _to call someone back from the darkness_ , as they put it. Perhaps one of _them_ can call her back.”

Owen gave her a bewildered look. “Are we returning to voodoo medicine now?”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Martha asked, raising a superior eyebrow. “Cos if you don’t, this is our best chance.”

“Very well,” Jack said with a weary sigh. “I’ll go back to Athos and talk to Halling. Perhaps they can indeed help. Gwen stays here with you. She’s _not_ to touch anything, lest she’d accidentally activate the local version of death ray or doomsday weapon, is that understood?”

“But Jack, what am I supposed to do then?” Gwen protested.

“Besides, we’re surrounded with Ancient tech here,” Owen added. “What if she breaks something important?”

“I’m sure there’s also a lot of good, old-fashioned medical equipment from Earth that needs a thorough cleaning,” Jack replied dryly. “With a toothbrush. Just keep her occupied.”

Seeing his black mood, Owen simply nodded and shut up.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Stepping through the Stargate just to fetch _one_ person from a different planet to return with them to Atlantis was a little like flying across two continents to have lunch at the airport and then turning around and going home, Jack found. Only with the travel being considerably shorter, of course. The technology of the Ancients still awed him.

In exchange, Jack spent an _extremely_ uncomfortable hour with reporting in to Dr. Shaw and breaking the bad news to Halling. At least there was barely any communications problem. Halling, like practically all Athosians, could speak English reasonably well by now. One had to love Athosian abilities.

He listened to Jack’s explanation with the for him characteristic intense concentration, and then he nodded gravely.

“I cannot assume to understand how that device of yours does what it does,” he said. “Neither is it of any interest for me. If Teyla is physically unharmed, though, then she must have fled to a place deep within her own mind. That is something that happens to people at times of great distress, if they have to face too much horror. If that is the case, we can deal with her condition. I believe Kaanan would have the best chance to call her back.”

The name said nothing to Jack, and he thought he’d met everyone from the village by now.

“Who’s this Kaanan?” he asked. “One of your healers?”

“No; he is a hunter and a shepherd,” Halling answered. “But he and Teyla have… _feelings_ for each other. The one with an emotional connection I always the best to call someone out of hiding.”

That actually made sense. More so if these people had mild – _very_ mild! – telepathic or emphatic abilities, which Jack had suspected for a while they had. There was still something he didn’t understand, though.

“Why don’t they marry, then, if they’re in love?” he asked.

Halling gave him a sad smile. “It is not that simple, Captain Harkness. I assume you know Brighíl?”

Jack nodded, vaguely remembering of a bossy, dark-haired, voluptuous Athosian woman with a clear preference for _very_ generous cleavages.

“Brighíl is the senior wife in Kaanan’s family,” Halling explained. “Without her consent, no new spouses can be accepted. And she would never accept a co-wife who is stronger than her.”

“And Teyla _is_ stronger,” Jack said. That wasn’t a question, but Halling nodded nonetheless.

“You might not have realized yet, Captain, but Teyla is the strongest of us all. Not just physically – although most strong men would not stand a chance against her in a fight – but also where wisdom and willpower are considered. That is why she had been chosen as the _Emmagan_ – the Eldest of the Elders and the leader of us all. Her feelings for Kaanan are her only weakness… but perhaps they will be her rescue right now.”

“But what if this woman – Brighíl, was her name? – won’t allow this Kaanan guy to come with us and help Teyla?” Jack asked worriedly.

Fort he first time, he could see steely strength shine through Halling’s smile.

“She might refuse _your_ request,” the Athosian said. “She cannot disobey _my_ orders. Not when the safety of the tribe is at risk. Worry not. Kaanan _will_ come, if I am the one making the call.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Halling’s authority was obviously greater than the Earth people had suspected, as he soon returned with a darkly handsome man, seemingly in his mid-thirties (although you could never know with Athosians, they matured very quickly), whom Jack would have thought of Greek, Italian or perhaps Middle Eastern origins back on Earth.

“This is Kaanan,” Halling introduced the newcomer. “We can go.”

They crossed the Gate to Atlantis, which Kaanan was seeing for the first time. He was accordingly frightened by the artificial environment, by the automated doors and by the strange people talking in half a dozen different languages. When he had to use the transporter, he nearly bolted in panic; only Halling’s calming presence kept him going.

The Infirmary, with all its machines, clearly frightened him, too, which was very different from the laid back reaction of most Athosians. Jack began to wonder whether the senior wife was keeping the guy shut away in some sort of cage or whatnot when he wasn’t with the herds. His eyes kept flattering from spot to spot like those of a trapped animal, and when he finally spotted Teyla, pale and unmoving and barely breathing, surrounded by all that frightening machinery, he nearly bolted again.

“Is he always this skittish?” Jack asked with barely controlled impatience.

“Kaanan has come to us from one of the most isolated tribes only a few years ago,” Halling explained. “He is even less used to all this… machinery you consider fairly common than the rest of us. Give him a little time; he _will_ do what we have brought him here for. He is a good man; and he values Teyla highly.”

 _Well, that’s one way to say that he’s smitten with her_ , Jack thought. Not that he could blame the guy; Teyla was truly exquisite. But she could also end up truly brain dead if this guy didn’t pull himself together, and soon.

As if realizing the urgency, Kaanan finally seemed to overcome his panic. He sat down at Teyla’s bedside, took her hand and began to talk to her in a language that sounded vaguely Athosian but was clearly a vastly different dialect than the one spoken by Teyla’s tribe.

“As I said: his tribe lives in isolation,” Halling explained softly. “Their language has not changed for a very long time. Ours has, as we often interact with others.”

“Can you still understand him?” Jack asked.

Halling nodded. “Of course. Their dialect is actually a lot closer to the Sacred Tongue of the Ancestors than ours. It is said that their forefathers used to serve in the old city, the one you call Ultima Thule, and severed most ties with us after the Ancestors’ departure.”

History was Jack’s least concern right now. “What is he saying?”

“He reminds Teyla of happy moments they have spent together,” Halling replied simply. “He asks her to return to him. Forgive me, Captain, but I believe we should not listen to this. It is between the two of them.”

Jack agreed reluctantly, and they left the Infirmary with Owen’s promise to alert them as soon as Teyla would wake up.

 _If_ she was going to wake up at all, that is.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Kaanan sat at Teyla’s bedside for two full days, without sleeping, with only a few short breaks to see to his immediate needs. Jack and Halling returned to Athos to prepare both settlements for the inevitable Wraith attack, in case Teyla wouldn’t wake up in time – or if they’d fail to destroy the Hive Ship, even if she did.

There were no guarantees, and they all knew that.

The Athosians and their herds were evacuated to Atlantis and ferried to the mainland by gateship. Only the ones in charge of the few scattered fields remained – the crop couldn’t be left untended. They knew the risks, but they had long got used to living in constant danger... and their work was crucial for the survival of the tribe.

Ultima Thule was prepared for emergency shutdown, so that the energy readings of working Ancient technology wouldn’t lock on the Wraith. The families with children were sent back to Atlantis; and so was most of the science and medical personnel, while the soldiers were mostly sent over to Athos, with rocket launchers, heavy machine guns and the likes. _Zat_ weapons might work against the Wraith themselves, but not against their _ships_. They needed the _really_ big guns against those.

This was the stand of things when word came from Atlantis that Teyla had finally woken up. Aside from being drained and weakened by the experience, she felt well enough – and what was more, she could still remember six of the seven symbols of the Gate address from her vision.

“So, will six symbols be enough to find the location of the Wraith Hive?” Jack asked the collected brains of the expedition at the impromptu staff meeting.

Professor Taylor made a show of condescending patience. “Captain, you must understand that even with the six symbols Miss Emmagan provided, there are still hundreds of permutations…”

“Seven hundred and twenty,” Ianto supplied helpfully. Then he looked at Jack with a smile and shrugged. “What? I’m good with numbers; you know that.”

Professor Taylor raised an eyebrow, impressed and clearly unwilling to show it.

“We all know the exact number, of course,” he said meaning his fellow geeks. “I’m just surprised that someone with such a limited education would do it. Anyway, the possibilities…”

“There’s a simple method to find the right address,” Markova interrupted, while Jack was still fighting the urge to hit the professor. _Hard_. “Take away the coordinates you can’t get a lock on. That’ll leave us with he right one. When you find it, send a MALP. It’s that simple.”

“Now, _that’s_ a crude and highly unscientific method!” Professor Taylor protested.

“It always worked for us in Russia,” Markova replied coolly. “I can make it an order if I have to. We don’t have the time to… what is it called…?”

“To dawdle,” Captain Price supplied, hurrying over to the DHD. “Never mind the professor, Doctor Markova; he can be a bit slow sometimes. _I’ll_ do this.”

“That would be helpful,” Markova agreed. “Please be as quick as you can. We need information, and we need facts – _and_ we have very little time to get them.”

“I’ll do my best,” Captain Price promised, waving at Dr. Zelenka. “Hey, Radek, can you give me a hand here?”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Contrary to everyone’s expectations, it had taken a fairly short time to work through all seven hundred and twenty combinations to find the one that locked and opened. Of course, it _had_ to be the seven hundred and eleventh one, but that was Murphy’s Law for you. 

Even so, Liz Shaw was frankly pleased with the work of her people.

“Good work, Captain, Radek,” she said. “Now, let’s prepare the MALP to launch and assess the possibility of a pre-emptive strike.”

“Are you really gonna through with this?” Professor Taylor asked incredulously. “Cos frankly, this is a bloody insane idea. Whatever these Wraith are, they were powerful enough to defeat an entire _galaxy_ of Ancients. Can you imagine Captain Harkness and a couple of his gung-ho men to beat them?”

“It is a long shot, that’s true,” Liz replied. “But can _you_ imagine what the Wraith will do once they discover that Atlantis is open for business again?”

That finally silenced the irascible scientist, and Suzie and Mickey could concentrate on programming the MALP and sending it through the Stargate. The entire command staff and everyone who’d fit into the Control room or could find some space on the adjoining balconies watched tensely as the versatile little robot crawled through the open wormhole and disappeared.

Jack turned immediately to the visual telemetry screen, which had just switched from digital noise to black.

“That’s odd,” he commented softly. “Are we receiving visual telemetry at all?”

“According to the instruments, we are,” the duty technician, who happened to be Sally Jacobs, replied, sounding confused.

“I can’t see anything,” Liz Shaw pointed out, as if the rest of them could possibly fail to notice that the screen was completely blank.

Captain Price bent closer the screen over Sally’s shoulder to check the readings.

“There are no atmospheric readings at all,” she said, baffled. “This makes no sense…”

At that very moment, a flash of light passed across the screen, startling them all.

“What was that?” Markova asked with a frown.

Jack was getting an idea. It sounded fairly unlikely, but one could never know. Not with the Ancients.

“Rotate the camera,” he told the technician. “Let’s see what else is there.”

Sally obeyed. As the camera revolved, suddenly the black screen was full of lights: a planet floated majestetically below it, just as Jack had suspected.

“The Gate is in orbit,” he stated the blindingly obvious.

“In high orbit, I’d say,” Dr. Volker added, almost pensively. “Over a planet on the far side of the galaxy, if the stars behind it are any indication.”

He was an astrophysicist, and an excellent one. Things like this were well within his area of expertise.

Liz Shaw glanced at Captain Price, head cocked. “Are we sure that’s the right address?”

Marion Price shrugged. “It’s the only one that we got a lock on. We’ve checked combinations seven hundred and twelve through seven hundred and twenty, too, just to be sure.”

“Very well,” Liz Shaw said. “Shut it down for the moment; no need to waste power while we prepare the gateship.”

“We have a go, then?” Jack asked.

“Of course,” Liz Shaw said. “At the very least, we need to know what kind of forces they have and whether our position has already been compromised by moving into Ultima Thule. Go, get one of the gateships. Captain Magambo will prepare a team for you.”

“No,” Jack said. “With all due respect to Captain Magambo and her men, I think I’ll be better served with half the Marine squad. They’re experienced in off-world missions. I’ll take Hamayouni, though; in case something happens to me, they’ll need someone to fly them home. And Sergeant Mehra, our demolitions expert.”

“And me,” Tosh said quietly. “Aside from Radek, I’m the one with the most knowledge about the ships, and _he_ doesn’t have the gene. We can’t take the risk the ship’s systems denying him access at a crucial moment.”

Dr. Shaw considered their arguments for a moment, then she nodded. “Very well. Gather your team. Captain Magambo will have Sergeant Mehra prepare the _naquadah_ warhead in the meantime. We’ve packed them; we shouldn’t miss the chance to use one if the opportunity offers itself.”

“And hurry up,” Captain Magambo added. “We’re almost too late as it is already.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Despite their best efforts, it took them several hours to finish preparations. In the end, though, they were ready to go. Bates, McKinney, Toussaint, Teague, Rickman and another Marine Jack couldn’t see well from the cockpit were sitting in the aft department with Tosh, “Dusty” Mehra and the _naquadah_ warhead. Hamayouni took the co-pilot’s seat.

No matter how risky the mission was, Jack couldn’t suppress his excitement. After all those years, he was in space again! Not via Stargate, not via TARDIS where you couldn’t really _experience_ space travel – it happened in different dimensions. Gateship One and all her sisters reminded him strongly of his sorted-out little Chulan spaceship – at a time when he was young and wild and free… and as mortal as every other human being.

“Tosh,” he called back over his shoulder, feeling as fey as he hadn’t felt since his years as a Time Agent, “do you have that address? Then come here and dial up!”

Tosh came forward and inputted the seven symbols quickly into the small DHD mounted between the seats of pilot and co-pilot. As she did so, the ship lifted into the air, hovering as the turntable beneath it twirled open, and slowly, gracefully sank through the opening, directly into the Gate room below.

Through the front window, they could see Doctor Shaw, Peter Grodin and Ianto watching the ship descend and hover in front of the open wormhole. Before them, the event horizon was shimmering like the surface of a vertical lake. Jack never found it quite this beautiful. Whatever might lay behind it, the Gate itself was still a marvel for him.

Liz Shaw’s voice came via headset, excited and worried at the same time. “You have a go, Jack. Be safe.”

Jack smiled and activated the drive with a thought. There was no audible reaction as Gateship One accelerated through the wormhole, no roaring of engines, no sudden pressure on his chest. They were going so fast that the ice-cold trip was over almost before it had begun, and suddenly they shot out into black space, the blue-white planet with its swirling clouds glistening like a jewel before them.

“It’s beautiful,” Tosh whispered in awe. “Breath-taking. Just like the pictures of Earth from the Space Shuttle, back home.”

“Actually, it’s even better,” Jack said, calling up the virtual display mentally. “Pollution is practically nonexistent. I doubt there would be any industrial activity down there.”

“No contraceptives in the rain, no oestrogen in the water, no feminized fish, then,” Tosh quoted smiling Jack’s favourite rant about Earth’s polluted water cycle. “You should be careful, though; you might end up pregnant here again.”

They laughed at the dumbstruck expression of the others, enjoying their private little joke. Something of the old days of Torchwood Three. Something only they could understand.

“So, where are we going next?” Tosh then asked.

As if the ship had understood her, another heads-up display appeared before Jack, focussing on a target down on the surface of the planet below.

“Cool,” Jack commented. “Not even my old Chulan spaceship would do that. Not before being asked first, that is. Of course, once we’re on the ground and don’t have the ship to do the thinking for us, things may not go quite so smoothly.”

“True,” Tosh agreed. “How do we find them, once we land? We’d need some kind of life-sign detector, one that is adjusted to find Wraith, specifically.”

She was still speaking when a small PDA unit on the cockpit wall next to Jack began to glow. Jack pulled it off cautiously and studied it for a moment, before shrugging and pocketing it.

“Stealth mode on,” he instructed the ship.

Something rippled across the window, signalling that the cloak had been engaged. Jack took a deep breath and took the ship down low over the beautiful yet hostile alien world.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Back on Atlantis, Teyla was still recovering from her traumatic experience with the ghost machine. While grateful to be alive and still in possession of all her wits, her predominant feelings were sorrow and bone-deep weariness. Kaanan had called her back from that dark place where she had been so hopelessly lost, but barely had she woken up, he left again.

She had to accept that Halling had been right. There was no way for her and Kaanan to become husband and wife, not as long as Brighíl was the senior wife of the family. And she was not so far gone in her passion to nurture any ill will against Brighíl. Brighíl might have had her flaws, but she was still a respected member of the tribe, who had already given them four children. Besides, she had been the one who had brought Kaanan home from a long hunting trip. She had her rights and prerogatives. If someone had to back off, it was Teyla.

Still, she found it very hard to give up such a long-nurtured dream.

She could feel the presence of another person at her bedside. As she looked up, the pretty, dark-skinned doctor the others called Martha was just about to sit down in the chair.

“How are you feeling?” Martha asked with a broad smile.

“Teyla smiled back at her tiredly. “Better… just very weak.”

“It will take some time until you regain your strength,” Martha said apologetically. “But you won’t take any permanent damage from the accident, as far as I can tell.”

“What happened to me?” Teyla asked. “No-one seems willing to tell me. I am not a child. Whatever happened, I can deal with it.”

“Oh, we know _that_ ,” Martha smiled gently. “I guess we just feel a little guilty, because one of us has caused the accident in the first place. She had her own experiences with the device, and when she saw you with it, she believed you were in danger.”

Teyla shook her head in bewilderment. “Why did she not ask Captain Harkness? He could have told her that I was acting according to his wish.”

“He could,” Martha sighed. “Unfortunately, our Gwen is a little… impulsive. She tends to act before thinking. She means well, never doubt it, but… she has a way to attract disaster.”

“I am surprised that Captain Harkness would select her for such a dangerous mission, then,” Teyla said.

“When we have the time, I’ll tell you about Jack Harkness and hormones and how they sometimes influence his choices,” Martha grinned. “In any case, I apologize in Gwen’s name, although I’m sure she’ll do it herself, eventually.”

“I hold no grudges against her… against any of you,” Teyla said. “It was unpleasant, yes, but I knew it could be dangerous, and I volunteered, after all. Besides, no permanent harm was done. I am recovering well enough.”

“Even though the man of your dreams has left so abruptly?” Martha asked. “I don’t want to peek, but are you and him… well… together?”

“No,” Teyla answered slowly. “And the way things look right now, we will not likely _be_ together, ever. When we have the time, I will tell you about Athosian family structure and marriage customs. Tell me, though; does the man of _your_ dreams already know about his good luck?”

“What do you mean?” Martha asked in surprise.

Teyla gave her a knowing look. “I do not know how good Earth people are at recognizing certain… signs. _My_ people can always tell when a woman is with child. It is all in the body language. So, how far are you?”

“Six weeks,” Martha lowered her voice. “Please, don’t tell anyone. There is no need for that just yet.”

“Of course not,” Teyla replied. “It is your right to choose the time when you wish to share your joy with others. May I offer my congratulations? A new life is always a gift that is worth being celebrated.”

Martha thanked him with a thoughtful expression. She hoped Peter Grodin would see it the same way. They hadn’t exactly _planned_ this. They had even taken precautions. But nothing can ever give a hundred per cent safety, and now she had to live with the consequences. Because no matter how Peter would react, she would never give up their child.


	17. In the Viper's Nest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 16 - IN THE VIPER'S NEST**

Jack brought Gateship One down in a small clearing among sparse trees. The planet didn’t seem all that different from Athos, and despite Mendoza’s theories, it surprised him that a foreign world in a completely different galaxy would look so much like home… by which he wasn’t really sure whether he meant Earth by it or Athos or both. During the heydays of the Ancients, there must have been lively traffic between the different planets, for similar plants to have been spread so widely.

But that wasn’t his primary concern right now. They could – hopefully – research Ancient history once they had finished this particular mission. Jack reminded himself that he had more important things to do at the moment. He removed his hands from the controls, and the cockpit powered down, going into standby mode.

Nodding at Tosh, he slipped from his seat and gave the orders to move out. The back door opened with a quiet hiss and a scent of damp leaves and pine drifted into the ship… so disturbingly familiar again. Jack shook his head, picked up his _zat_ gun and let Bates lead the way out. They left Tosh, Hamayouni, Rickman and another one of the Marines behind; the rest followed the Master Sergeant out.

The air was cool and damp; the forest so silent that the thump of his own boots on soft dirt echoed loudly in his ears. He winced, slowly turned around, weapon raised, to check out his surroundings, listening hard. 

Nothing. So far, so good.

“Teams of two,” he told Bates. “Learn what you can and lay down defences as you see fit. I wanna be able to blow up this place if we have to. Two clicks on the radio means you’re clear to talk.”

“Yes, sir,” Bates replied crisply.

“Do _not_ engage the enemy,” Jack added, prepared to move out. “Dusty, with me!”

The killing machine in the disguise of a fragile Indian beauty fell in step beside him, cool and collected and not showing the slightest sign of anxiety. Dusty had asked for a reassignment from the British division of UNIT to the Stargate program because _there were more bad guys to kill_ , as she’d put it. If anyone, she’d truly found her vocation in the military. In civilian life, she’d have probably become a dangerous killer. In her chosen job she’d become the rescuer of dozens of people already. Jack admitted in his honest moments that she made him nervous. But on a mission like this, he was grateful to have her watch his back.

He gave her one of his patented thousand-megawatt-grins, by which she seemed completely unaffected, and they moved on.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Thanks to the life-sign detector, they found the Wraith fortress – for want of a better word – almost immediately. It was built into the side of the mountain, and scrambling up the rubble below had been comparatively easy.

“Too easy,” Bates commented with a frown. “It smells like a trap. Why else should they leave the way unwatched?”

“Overconfidence perhaps?” Dusty Mehra suggested. “What we’ve seen so far indicates that no-one has been able to stand up to these guys for a very long time. Perhaps ever since the Ancients left.”

“Besides,” Jack added grimly, “I’m pretty sure things will be getting tough real soon.”

“Jack,” Tosh’ voice interrupted him over the radio; unfortunately, their headsets didn’t work cut off the central computer, “we’ve got Gate activity here. Incoming wormhole in ten seconds.”

“Is the cloak still working?” Jack asked.

There was a moment of silence, while Tosh checked her instruments. “Yes.”

“Good,” Jack said. “Lie low and maintain radio silence until they’re gone. We can’t risk the ship being detected.”

“Understood,” Tosh replied simply. Barely twenty seconds later, though, she called them again. “Jack? Find cover; three of those Dart things are your way!”

The others had heard the warning, too, and sought cover, crouching down under the bushes. There, near the soil, the air was thick and mushy and very, very old. As if no-one had been down here in decades. Perhaps even centuries…

Jack had never been claustrophobic, but now he found it hard to breathe, and could feel panic rising in his throat and pressing down on his chest. Which was ridiculous, because nothing could really happen to _him_ , could it? He _always_ came back, right?

But fear was not something you could simply conquer by logic and, to his shame, he felt himself shaking with terror, for the first time since… well, since he’d realized that he couldn’t be permanently killed. _Great timing_ , he thought in disgust. _The best possible moment to freak out!_ And yet he couldn’t help it…

… until he felt the strong, warm grip of Dusty Mehra on his clammy hand and looked up right into her dark, confident eyes.

“It’s all right, sir,” she said in a low, even voice. “We all shit our pants sometimes, and we can’t choose when to do it. Just let it roll over you and off you; that way, it will pass quickly.”

It sounded ridiculous, but as Jack tried to follow her instructions, surprisingly enough, it worked. He could breathe again.

“Thanks,” he said. She nodded seriously and gave his hand a squeeze before releasing it. 

“All part of the job, sir,” she said with a shrug.

Then they had to duck again, because now they could hear the scream of engines overhead, disturbingly familiar from his vision, and three arrow-shaped forms ripped across the treetops in tight formation, aiming directly at the Wraith stronghold below. They must have been simply returning home, not counting on any unexpected visitors, as they weren’t emanating those culling beams; just assumed a flight path that seemed to draw a high arch between the position of the Gate and that of their supposed home, moving with deadly elegance. 

Jack remembered from the vision that they had practically no inertia, and realized that shooting them down with a rocket launcher would require a sharp eye and damn good reflexes. He only hoped that Rickman, whom he’d left behind with said rocket launcher to protect the gateship, actually _had_ such good reflexes.

Still, the return of the Darts to the planet didn’t reveal where the Hive Ship would be hiding. Even if the crew was mostly asleep, it should have been in orbit around the planet. Yet they’d found no trace of it in space, and now the Darts were returning to the _surface_. It was strange. There was a secret behind it, one that he had to reveal if they ever wanted to be safe.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The Darts went down somewhere westwards from their position, and then there was no more activity. None at all. They waited for almost twenty minutes, but nothing stirred. Jack clicked his radio and received identical clicks from the other teams.

“All right, people, we’re moving in,” he said. “Dusty, you have the coordinates?”

Sergeant Mehra checked her PDA. “Yes, sir,” and she ratted down the numbers.

“You heard that?” Jack asked the other teams. “Well, meet us there. Take as much cover on your way as possible – and stay sharp.”

They met up at the coordinates where the Darts had vanished from Sergeant Mehra’s locator device, and after a lengthy search, they found what might be the entrance of the building – or _one_ of the entrances anyway: a huge set of snap doors, large enough for a gateship to pass through. It seemed to be the right place to enter – _if_ they could open the doors, that is.

“Assume strategic defensive positions,” Jack ordered, “and should anything come through those doors, use the _zat_ guns. They make practically no noise, unlike the P90s. Aim to disintegrate: three shots in a row. These guys are said to have incredible regenerative abilities; let’s not give them the chance to get up again.”

“How do you intend to get in, sir?” Bates asked.

Jack smiled and activated his wrist strap. “I’ve got this little alien gizmo here, Sergeant, that’s amazing when it comes to picking locks. I don’t know _how_ it works, not exactly, but it _does_ work, and as long as it does…” he shrugged.

As if reacting to his words, the snap doors slid open, slowly and noiselessly. Even he was surprised how quickly it happened. The thought _too easy_ echoed in his mind. But he ignored it. They had a job to do.

“Well,” he said brightly, “as they say, there’s no time like the present. Dusty, you with me. Sergeant, set up a perimeter, in case we might need a little distraction later. We’ll make a quick survey and return here to decide on our next move.

“Yes, sir,” Bates acknowledged his orders crisply; then he gave his men the patented death glare. “You heard the Captain, Marines. _Move_!”

For a moment, Jack watched the well-oiled work of the team with appreciation; then he waved to Dusty, and they entered the stronghold of the enemy.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The inside of the building… cave… whatever… was unlike anything he’d ever seen before; and he _had_ seen his fair share of strange places. The walls looked like stone but felt remarkably smooth to the touch and way less cold than stone walls inside of a rock ought to be. Some components were definitely metallic, yet of an alloy he wasn’t familiar with. In certain places the walls were almost translucent, yet he could never really see what was behind them.

It was… unsettling, to put it mildly. Like walking through the intestines of some huge, sleeping creature that could wake up any moment.

Keeping low and keeping quiet, they moved through the silent, empty tunnels like ghosts in an abandoned, haunted old castle. It was like some kind of horror movie; if a bunch of zombies had jumped out at them, Jack wouldn’t have been surprised. Yet when they turned around a corner, they unexpectedly found something different: real, living people.

Right before them was some sort of holding cell, sealed off by a grid that looked like cobwebs – cobwebs as thick as his arm and hard as stone, by the look of them. _Terrific_ , he thought. _Petrified cobwebs, keeping people in a cell! Now I’ve seen it all!_

The people in the den didn’t look all that different from the Athosian – fairly average human beings, most likely from a society of low industrial level, if their clothes were any indication. Jack remembered what the Athosians had said: that the Wraith didn’t allow their herd to develop above a certain industrial level, least they would become a threat. _They don’t like their food to kick back_ , he thought grimly. These poor folks certainly didn’t seem to be any threat for the monsters.

Dusty touched his arm warningly, and now he, too could hear the heavy footsteps coming from the corridor tunnel of them. A quick glance around revealed that there were no shadowy niches to hide within, so they quickly retreated behind the corner, before either the prisoners or their jailors could have spotted them.

The footsteps came closer, like some unstoppable force of nature. Jack carefully peeked around the corner – and froze as he got his first true glimpse of a live Wraith, the terror of an entire galaxy.

The three creatures emerging from the shadows were tall, taller than the average man – at _least_ six feet, but most likely more, and narrowly built. They had smooth, waist-length hair, white like freshly fallen snow, and wore long, identical coats that billowed behind them in a way that made Jack instantly envious. Dammit, but he missed his greatcoat! Two of the creatures had a mesh-like, metallic mask obscuring their face, but the third one… _that_ made him realize that he wasn’t watching an old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery movie but looking into the face of pure, unadulterated evil.

The Wraith was pale like a corpse, its eyes black and lifeless, its mouth full of sharp, pointy teeth like those of a shark. For a moment, Jack wondered idly why a species that was reportedly capable of sucking out life energy directly from its victims would need such a serious set of teeth; but perhaps they belonged to a previous phase of Wraith evolution. Or they purely served the purpose of impressing the opposite gender. After all, who could tell what would attract a completely alien species? If the Ood found nasal tentacles sexy and the Blowfish got turned on by dorsal spines, why couldn’t the Wraith find pointy teeth the ultimate attraction?

Jack shook his head, bewildered by the strange direction of his own thoughts. It wasn’t his task to study Wraith social behaviour… assuming the monsters _had_ one to begin with. Especially since what the creatures were doing right now didn’t have the slightest remembrance to any mating rituals. Frankly, it seemed a lot more as if they were selecting livestock for the next meal.

Memories of the Brecon Beacons emerged uninvitedly, and Jack had to fight his urge to get sick.

The unmasked Wraith – presumably the chief honcho among them – touched some controls on the wall panel next to the cell, and the cobweb-like grid opened silently. Jack could hear the whimpers of fear from the people within and felt his own blood run cold as ice. There was something eerie in the behaviour of the monsters, in the complete silence of their actions. It had something of a snake hypnotizing its victim with its unmoving glare.

Abruptly, one of the imprisoned people, a stockily built male who seemed somewhat older than the rest, stepped forward and shouted something defiantly at their capturers. One of the masked Wraith fired its weapon without warning, blasting the man across the room. He crumpled against the far wall and fell to the floor in a heap as two of the women hurried to his aid. 

Ignoring them, the lead Wraith turned its dead eyes onto the rest of the prisoners, its gaze sweeping across them like a frozen wind before it came to rest on a young, dark-haired male. It gave no sound, just stared at the poor man, snake-like.

The man shrank back in absolute terror, eyes wide and filling with tears. With no command given, the two masked Wraith stepped into the den and seized him. He whimpered, so frightened he could barely speak. Jack couldn’t understand the words but he could make an educated guess what it was about. The selected victim was either asking for help or pleading for mercy… none of which was granted.

The lead Wraith gave the rest of the prisoners a warning glare; then it turned away and stepped out of the den. Locked in the iron grip of the two masked Wraith, the young man was dragged out after it, whimpering in terror. 

As they pulled him form the cell, he began to scream. Sick with impotent fury, Jack all but trembled as the victim’s wails echoed the length of the tunnels. There was only one place he’d heard such horrible screams before: in Flat Holm, when one of the inmates had been having a memory flash.

“There was nothing we could do to save _him_ ,” he whispered, “but I’ll be damned if I let the others be taken.”

Dusty Mehra nodded in grim agreement. “What’s the plan, sir?”

She didn’t ask _if_ he had a plan, only _what_ it was. Jack felt a bit flattered that she apparently trusted him so much already.

“I’ll try to open the grid,” he replied. “And we’ll call the ship closer to this place. You lead the people to the ship and Hamayouni takes them to Atlantis before coming back and picking us up again. In the meantime, we’ll do a little more survey in here and try to find a good place for our bomb.”

“Risky,” Sergeant Mehra commented,” but I don’t have any better suggestion. Let’s do it sir.”

They crept forward around the corner again, approaching the grid. One of the captives spotted them and alerted the others. Soon, they were all pressing against the grid, their eyes glittering hopefully in the dim light and talking excitedly in low voices. The language they used was different from Athosian – it didn’t even sound similar. They must have been taken from another planet.

Jack gestured them to step back and be quiet, which they seemed to understand somehow. Then he tried to remember which controls exactly had the lead Wraith touched to copy the opening sequence.

His memory was apparently crap – or the panel was fingerprint-coded – because nothing happened. He hissed in anger and tried to pick the lock with the help of his wrist strap. Again, no results whatsoever. The technology was probably too different. Tosh might have been able to pick the lock with the help of the iPod, but they didn’t have time to get her here.

“Okay, that isn’t working,” Jack declared, slightly annoyed. “New plan.”

“We could shoot the control panel to pieces,” Dusty suggested. “The loss of power ought to release the lock on the grid.”

“Or trigger an intruder alert,” Jack pointed out. “No; we’ll wait until the Wraith come back to take another prisoner. Once the grid’s open we shoot _them_ to pieces and free these people.”

Sergeant Mehra nodded with something akin to enthusiasm. She so loved killing bad guys. “Works for me, sir. _Zat_ guns?”

“ _Zat_ guns,” Jack replied in grim agreement. “Let’s just hope the prisoners won’t do anything stupid that could reveal our presence.”

They didn’t have to wait long. A scuff of feet soon alerted them to the return of the Wraith. Like before, the chief honcho opened the grid and stepped into the den, its dead eyes locked onto the previously stunned man who’d regained consciousness in the meantime. They stared at each other, the Wraith and the man who was most likely a leader of his own people, and it felt like forever before the creature turned and left the cell. 

It had not laid a hand on the man yet, but he seemed to know what he had to do. With one parting look at his people, he followed the Wraith to his imminent death. There was so much dignity in his carriage that Jack couldn’t help but feel great respect for him and tightened his grip on the _zat_ gun. He was _not_ about to let this brave man be eaten.

“Now!” he whispered to Dusty, and they both fried their _zat_ s, three times in rapid succession. The two masked Wraith simply disintegrated before they‘d know what hit them but that still left them with the chief honcho and its stunner.

“Down!” Jack hissed, and both Dusty and he rolled to the side, out of the way of the stunning beam. The monster had good reflexes, one had to give it that much. Making a three-sixty roll, they ended up in shooting position again, and took the Wraith until double fire until there was nothing left of it.

“Good work, Sergeant,” Jack said. “Now, let’s get these people out of here while I’m calling our taxi,” he clicked twice on his radio and waited.

“This is Gateship One,” the voice of Hamayouni crackled through the static. “Go ahead, sir.”

“Keep the cloak engaged but move the ship over to our last position,” Jack whispered. “We’re gonna have some passengers. Seven of them, to be accurate. Sergeant Bates, what about that perimeter?”

“All set, sir,” Bates replied.

“Good,” Jack said. “As soon as the… the passengers are on board and the ship’s left for Atlantis, I’ll need that _naquadah_ warhead over here… but not before.”

In the meantime Dusty was urging the prisoners to leave the cell and hurry down the tunnel, towards the entrance… not that they’d need much encouraging. The older man, still a bit unsteady on his feet from the aftermath of the stunning beam, was supported by the two women who’d come to his aid before. Minutes later, they were gone, and Jack retreated behind the corner, too, in case the Wraith came to check on their fellow monsters. By now, they must have realized that something was amiss.

His radio clicked again, and he returned the sign.

“Sir, this is Gateship One. We’ve all passengers tucked away safely and are ready to lift-off.

“Acknowledged,” Jack replied. “Please, hurry up. I’d like to blow this joint as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir. Gateship One out.”

Jack broke the connection and peered around the corner carefully, as it seemed to him he’d heard a strange sound – like the rasp of dead leaves scraping together – coming from ahead of him. Footsteps perhaps? No... there was nothing there… or was it? A movement up the tunnel, a shadow, half-seen, vanishing like smoke, when he turned towards it. What the hell was _that_?

He felt _something_ brush his cheek, and as he spun around, he could see it right in front of him: a looming shadow, black and huge in the dim light. He fired the _zat_ gun, trying to make a s little noise as possible, and the shadow melted like morning mist. Like it had never been there. Strange…

He felt breathless, hands clammy. How was he supposed to fight shadows? Something Teyla had said come to his mind: _The Wraith can make you see things that are not there_. Now he understood what she’d meant. _Mind games_ , he thought. _Terrific_.

Blinking a couple of times, Jack shook his head to clear it. This was an unpleasant turn of events, but nothing he wouldn’t have dealt with before. He recalled his Time Agent training, the techniques he’d been taught to wear off telepathic intrusion. He could imagine how frightening such visions could be for the average Joe but fortunately, he’d had the advantage of proper training.

On the other hand, the fact that the Wraith would try their mind games on him could only mean that they were already well aware of his presence. He decided that a tactical retreat would be the sensible thing to do, at least until Dusty and Hamayouni had caught up with him. He began to creep backwards, down to the entrance…

Without forewarning, something sharp and electrical stabbed him hard into the back. A flash flood of heat scorched through his mind, setting his nerve endings to fire, sending him spiralling down into darkness. His vision dimmed, all he could still see were shadows and through them he could vaguely hear an outraged hiss, like that of an angry snake.

Then everything went black.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Bates and his men had unloaded the _naquadah_ warhead and Tosh was now busy with checking it out and adjusting its settings. For such an impressive weapon, it was surprisingly small. A strong man could have transported it alone. However, dropping it would have been a very bad idea, as it had been enriched with liquefied _naquadria_ , and that highly volatile variation would have exploded by impact, destroying everything in a radius of two miles.

“Can you hurry up a little, Doctor Sato?” Bates asked with tightly controlled impatience. “I don’t like the idea of the Captain all on his own in that rat-trap.” 

“Neither do I,” Tosh replied, not even looking up from her work, “but I can’t afford to make a mistake here, or this thing’s gonna up like a supernova. Which is why I need Dusty here to help me. But the rest of you can go after Jack, if you want. Dusty can blow the cells here without help, if needs must be.” 

“I’ll go for Dusty,” one of the Marines volunteered, and Tosh looked up in shock at the familiar voice. 

“ _Gwen_? What are you doing here?” 

“She was assigned to our team in Smitty’s stead, shortly before our departure,” Bates explained. “Captain’s orders.” 

“I seriously doubt _that_ ,” Tosh said coldly. “If I remember correctly, Jack had expressly ordered Gwen to say in Atlantis. I have no idea what’s ridden her to make such a stunt, but those definitely weren’t Jack’s orders.” 

“But Tosh,” Gwen looked at her with wide, pleading eyes, already brimming with tears, “Jack _needs_ me. You know what he’s like – he never cares for his own safety. _Somebody_ must look after him!” 

Tosh shook her head in exasperation. “You’re hopelessly delusional,” was all she said before returning to her work. 

“So, what are we doing now?” McKinney asked. “We’re one man short, and who knows what’s waiting for us inside.” 

Bates gave Gwen an unfriendly look that promised retaliation. 

“We’ll take her; we have no choice. Give her a Beretta; that’s the only weapon she’s qualified for, and if we have to break the Captain out of there, stealth won’t play such a big role anyway.” 

McKinney shot the smugly smiling Gwen a doubtful look but didn’t protest. Not _now_. Besides, there _were_ too few of them; they needed everyone who could fire a weapon. 

“All right,” Bates said. “Teams of two, like before. Zeke, you take Miss Cooper; and keep an eye on her all the time. Doctor Sato, call us when the bomb is ready. Rickman, you stay here and bring it after us.” 

“No need for that,” Dusty protested. “I can do it.” 

Bates nodded. “All the better. Rickman, you with me then. Let’s move, people.” 

*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Dr. Shaw had been waiting anxiously for the return of their assault team. If she was honest with herself, she had serious doubts that they might hit the Wraith in time… there were too many unknown factors. But she also knew they might never get the chance to deal a pre-emptive strike again. 

So she hoped. And prayed. What else could she do? 

“Any news?” she asked Ianto who’d just delivered her a very small cup of coffee. They still had to ration such non-essential stuff rigorously, but rank did have its privileges. 

Ianto shook his head. “Let’s hope that no news is good news,” he suggested. Liz Shaw sighed. 

“I for my part prefer news, even if they’re _not_ good,” she said. “It gives me the illusion that I’m in control.” 

Ianto smiled, but before he could have said anything, Eddie Wong looked up to them from the Control room. 

“Doctor Shaw, we’ve got an incoming wormhole,” he reported. “I’m reading Sergeant Hamayouni’s IDC.” 

The shield shimmered white as the Gate activated behind it. 

“Thank God!” Liz said in relief. “Let them in.” 

She wished they’d come on foot, so that she could speak with them immediately. Waiting for them to come down the stairs that led to the shuttle hangar was eternity – and it shocked her a little to see Hamayouni shepherd a small group of frightened people before him. Some of them were injured, others were weeping, the rest just looked shell-shocked. They all stared around them in awe. 

“Who are these people?” Dr. Shaw asked. 

“Captives we’ve saved from the Wraith,” Hamayouni explained. “They were likely taken from a different planet, as they don’t seem to speak Athosian.” 

“Have you tried the Traders’ Dialect?” Ianto suggested. 

Hamayouni shook his head. “I’m barely able to understand Athosian.” 

“Well, perhaps Teyla can talk to them,” Ianto turned to Dr. Shaw. “They need to be checked out in the Infirmary anyway.” 

“Good idea,” Liz Shaw looked at Corporal Bell. “Carol, would you escort our… _guests_ to Doctor Beckett? Have him take care of their injuries, and Teyla might be able to calm them down a little before we’re trying to establish communication. She does have that effect on people.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Carol Bell smiled at the fugitives pleasantly and gestured them to follow her. Tekin Kurtulus, the civilian security guard on duty, followed them discretely from a distance. Liz Shaw turned back to Hamayouni. 

“Where’s the rest of the team?” she asked. 

“They’re preparing the _naquadah_ bomb as we’re speaking,” the pilot replied. “We’ve found some sort of Wraith stronghold, built into a mountainside. I need to go back for them at once, though. We don’t want them to be caught by the Wraith… _or_ the explosion.” 

“No, we don’t,” Liz Shaw agreed. “Very well, Sergeant; return to the planed. And try to bring them back in one piece.” 

“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” Hamayouni promised. 

Ten minutes later he was gone again, and the waiting began anew. 

Ianto checked the duty roster for security personnel and frowned. According to the roster, Gwen should have relieved Kurtulus half an hour ago – so where was she? He touched his headset. 

“Gwen, this is Ianto, do you read me?” 

He got no answer, so he called Andy to ask if he knew where Gwen might be, but Andy didn’t have any idea, either. Neither did Owen or Suzie. Ianto didn’t even bother to ask Mickey, after that. Instead, he systematically checked on every Marine originally assigned to Bates’ assault team – and found that Smitty, who’d been foreseen to go with them, was still on Atlantis. 

That answered _one_ of his questions. Next, he went to check on the weapons depot. The zat guns were gone, but that was to be expected. The Torchwood-issue stun guns were where they were supposed to be. When he checked out the containment boxes, though, a cold shiver ran down his spine. 

The Jamolean lance was gone. 

*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Jack came to in a giant room… a literal cavern, although clearly not one of natural origins. Its edges were lost in shadows that looked like cloisters, its cone-shaped ceiling soared up almost too high for him to see, and its honeycombed surface glowed a soft gold. All around, at the periphery of his vision, he could glimpse whispers of movement. Dark shapes flitting around the edges of the room, shadows within shadows. 

The whole thing seemed… alive somehow, with a disturbing likeness to the alien ship from the second Predator movie he’d watched with his late wife, Lucia, back in the 1990s… 

Like the alien ship in that movie… of course, that was it! He was inside of one of those Hive Ships the crew of which was hibernating between two massive, galaxy-wide cullings! That was why they couldn’t have found it in orbit – it was down on the planet! And considering how much the outer hull had been buried in dirt and overgrown with vegetation, it must have been parked on this planet for _centuries_! 

He took a more thorough look around but could see no Wraith in the room; just a high-backed gothic chair, more like a throne, actually. It was made of some indefinite material that could have been stone. Or bone. Or _petrified_ bone. 

The body of a man lay right in front of the chair, as if thrown there carelessly, like some discarded toy. He seemed long dead. His face was withered, his limbs and hands nothing but skin slumped over brittle bone. 

_Dead for two years, at the very least_ , Jack thought, based on past experience… until he recognized the victim’s clothing. The husk of a corpse was the young man taken from the holding cell less than an hour ago. Over the man’s heart five small puncture wounds still oozed blood; the only visible marks on his body. 

There was a movement of shadow above his head, a phantom dropped from the ceiling, right behind him. He spun, hand reaching for the _zat_ gun that was now gone, and found himself face-to-face with a nightmare. 

It was a female Wraith, dressed in all white, which seemed a blasphemy somehow, seeing such a deadly monster clad in the colour of innocence. Her long, blood-red hair flowed down her narrow back like liquid fire, her lithe body moved towards him with the deadly elegance of a cobra, ready to strike. Her pallid face and lifeless eyes could have turned one’s blood to ice with horror. 

He recognized her from the vision, of course; it was the Keeper of the Hive, the one overseeing the taking of Ultima Thule. Just how long _did_ these monsters life? He tried to avoid the mesmerizing look of her dead eyes; Time Agent training or not, he couldn’t be completely sure that he’d be able to resist her in the long run. 

She was circling him now, her clawed fingers trailing occasionally across his uniform. For the first time in his life, Jack felt the touch of a female being upon his body distasteful. But again, these creatures were closer to beasts than to human beings? Cunning beasts that hungered only for hunting… And despite his somewhat _colourful_ reputation, bestiality had never been one of his favourite kinks. 

“Word of all new things finds its way to us sooner or later,” she hissed. 

To his surprise, she was speaking the Traders’ Dialect he’d already learned from the Athosians to a certain extent. Did the Wraith actually _talk_ to their food? Well, perhaps even they needed to gather intel from time to time. 

“It is a rare thing, though, that new things would come to us voluntarily,” she continued. “What do you call yourself? What is your designation?” 

She sounded almost like the Borg, and Jack had to suppress a hysterical giggle. 

“Captain Jack Harkness, formerly from Torchwood Three,” he replied brightly. “I’m paid to hunt down creatures like you, actually. It’s a good job, with much fun and lots of fringe benefits.” 

She paused her circling, head cocked. “So little fear,” she breathed. He’d expected her breath to stink like carrion, but – surprisingly enough – she didn’t. She _did_ have a slightly acidic smell to her, not unlike what one would smell close to an upturned anthill, but that was all. “Is it valour? Or ignorance?” 

Jack gave her his widest, whitest grin. “Speaking of ignorance, a statuesque lady like you really ought to get herself better dental work. Those teeth of yours don’t agree with any attempts of seduction.” 

She shot him a look that could have frozen Hell over. “Fortunately, Captain Harkness, we do not require our food to _agree_ with us.” 

“A shame, really,” Jack commented, trying to buy his time until the cavalry would arrive. “And we were having so much fun, you and I.” 

A soft noise from far above drifted down, distracting him. He glanced up but saw nothing, and when he looked at the Keeper again, she had stepped back. Behind her he saw two other Wraith, significally larger ones, with that metal mesh covering their faces. _Drones_ , he realized. _The ones designed for the dirty work_. Sometimes it was a disadvantage to know what one was about to face. 

The Keeper’s tone changed now; she regarded him with more disdain than before. “What do you call your world?” she demanded. Like he would ever tell. 

“Which one?” he asked cheekily as he could feel her mind probing his. 

He realized he couldn’t keep her out completely, Time Agent training notwithstanding, so he merrily threw at him mental images of every bizarre alien he’d ever met, from the Daleks through the Crespallions and the Draconias down to the Gelth, the Judoon, the insectoid Malmooth, the Racnoss, the Slitheen and the Sycorax. It was, as Ianto would put, quite the list. 

She drew closer again, apparently confused by the kaleidoscope he’d chosen to show her. _Hungry_ , Jack thought, seeing the glittering of her eyes. She is _hungry_. Her nostrils flared, as if she were breathing in his scent, and her acidic smell grew stronger. 

“ _Your_ world!” she hissed. “The one you consider _home_.” 

“Hmmm…” Jack pretended to think about it. “That’s a more complicated question than you can imagine. I get around a lot.” 

He showed her strange planets he’d visited, both as a Time Agent and a con man and with the Doctor. Worlds that the Wraith could never reach through the protective barrier of time and that were therefore safe to be shown. 

He could feel her grow angry with his evasive tactics, and now her incredibly powerful mind was pitted against his, full force. He could feel her peeling away his resistance, layer by layer, as one would peel an onion, and knew she’d break him within seconds. With a last, desperate effort he called up the image of Belthil, a lush, densely populated world with a binary sun and eleven moons, that he knew had been wiped out millennia ago, hoping that it would be alluring enough for her _not_ to search any further. 

As expected, she took the bait. “It’s not among our stars,” she said. 

“No,” he admitted, putting up some mock resistance, just to make the bait more convincing. 

“How many more are there of your kind?” she asked, practically breathing into his ear. 

“I won’t tell,” he replied stubbornly. Giving up at once would have been too easy. Would have made her suspicious. He _needed_ her to believe him if he wanted to keep Earth safe. 

“Thousands, millions?” she insisted. 

Jack pretended to resist, then he allowed the single word _more_ echo through his mind. 

“ _More_?” her eyes flashed with unspeakable desire. He could practically hear it in his mind, like the roar of a pack of hungry lions. “How many?” 

She was in his head now, in full control, and his resistance melted like the snow cap of a reawakened volcano. _Billions_. She was in his head, forcing him to say the word. Forcing him to speak. Sweat trickled through his matted hair, down his temples and the sides of his face… 

The Keeper watched his futile struggle with those dead eyes, her fanged mouth, red like an open wound in her pallid face, smiling with terrible satisfaction. 

“Our feeding ground has not been so rich in ten thousand years.” 

The onslaught of her mind was stronger than any thing Jack had ever felt before. His knees were beginning to shake, his entire body crumpled from the force of it. 

“Your will is strong,” she all but purred. “Admirable… but ultimately futile.” 

Jack was still not about to give up. “Is that…” it was an effort to form a word, to make his rigid jaw work, but he’d be damned if he went without a punch line. “Is that… acceptable behaviour… among your kind… on the first date?” 

Her gaze slid to the drones at her back and she shrugged. “All living things must eat; in this, I’m sure we are similar. Hunger is distasteful.” 

“So is… killing a man… on the first date…” Jack returned. “I think… we’re done… talking…” 

She slid closer now, her mind clamped around his like an iron fist. “I think not,” she hissed. “You still have much to tell me. _Kneel_.” 

Jack wanted to resist but he couldn’t. His knees collapsed like those of a marionette with its strings cut, and he fell to the floor at her feet. She reached out, her clawed fingers touching his face and had in a grotesque, revolting parody of Ianto’s comforting gesture; they felt cold yet dry like the skin of a snake. 

He tried to jerk away but he couldn’t move, couldn’t hinder her in soiling the memory of Ianto’s touch. Her hand was on his chest now, caressing him like a lover, and that was perhaps the worst in the whole situation. He wanted to scream, he wanted to vomit, he wanted to kill the bitch for perverting those memories… yet he could do nothing. 

“I have not tasted such strength for so long…” her voice was a low purr, her fingers knotted in his shirt as she ripped it from his chest. 

“Die, bitch!” he spat with all the strength he could muster… which, at the moment, wasn’t that much. 

Her face moved closer, and she smiled at him in a way that was disturbingly intimate. “You first,” she whispered. 

And then her fingers stabbed deep into his chest and all he could feel was pain and fear and horror, stretching on for eternity, as his body began to crumble away from him. After as many deaths as he’d already had, one would think dying would have been fairly routine for him by now. But he’d never before died like _this_ , being devoured by the insatiable hunger of a monster, eaten alive and feeling the pain of every little bite… Not even Abbadon had come close to _this_. 

“How many years must I take from you,” the Keeper hissed into his face, “before you tell me what I wish to know?” 

He felt weak, faint, a blaze of agony coursing through his limbs as she sucked the life out of him. He could feel it, like blood pooling on the flow. He’d died like that many times: from bullet wounds, knife wounds, you name it, bleeding out where he lay in the dirt. Sometimes killed by the hand of those he’d considered friends. 

It was nothing new, really. Neither did it last, ever. 

“Or shall I take them all?” his resistance had clearly angered the Keeper beyond measure. Her fingers bit deeper, the agony tripling and tearing a bone-shattering scream from his throat. But he wouldn’t give in, and in the end, she couldn’t do anything about it. 

“Where is this new feeding ground?” she demanded, her voice rising to an angry screech. 

He could feel her frustration; perhaps even her fear. She clearly felt that he’d managed to keep something important from her and was determined to find it before he’d die. But it was too late now. He was seeing everything through a grey haze already, faded and distant. Death was coming, he could feel its familiar presence hover above, waiting to take him… and the thought occurred to him that perhaps, this time, it might actually last. 

This time, he might actually die and _not_ come back, despite the solemn promise he’d given Ianto. 

In this moment, which might well be his last, he deeply regretted that he’d never been able to _speak_ of his feelings to the young man who meant so much for him. That he wouldn’t be able to leave at least _that_ memory to comfort him in his grief. 

“Forgive me, _cariad_ ,” he whispered, feeling the last spark of life dim and go out in his body. 

Once again, Captain Jack Harkness, ex-Time Agent, intergalactic con man, ex-companion and formerly the head of Torchwood Three, recently married man, died. And for the first time for centuries, he couldn’t be sure he’d come back. 


	18. Chapter 18

**CHAPTER 17 - THE AWAKENING**

Teyla was greatly surprised to see the small group of seven being ushered into the Infirmary by Corporal Bell. She recognized them by their clothing as the inhabitants of the planet Zephyr; a somewhat isolationist people who avoided contact with other worlds, believing that it would spare them a Wraith attack.

Apparently, they had been wrong. She recognized the state they were in; the few who ever survived being taken by the Wraith all had this lifeless stare. As if something had been broken deep within them, something that could not be healed ever again.

Mindful of her still somewhat shaky balance, Teyla got up from her bed and walked over to the stocky, middle-aged man who seemed to be their leader.

“Greetings,” she said in the Traders’ Dialect, speaking slowly in case they were not used to speak in it. “I am Teyla Emmagan of Athos. And you come from Zephyr, if I am not mistaken.”

“I’m Orin,” the man muttered darkly. The fact that their isolationist politics hadn’t spared them the culling had obviously shaken him to the bone. “How do you know where we are from?”

“Your belts,” Teyla replied. “I know the pattern of their weaving. My mother used to trade with your people for woven leather items.”

“Your mother?” now there was vague interest in the man’s – Orin’s – voice. “Then I may know her; we don’t trade that much with outworldlers.”

“Perhaps,” Teyla allowed. “Her name was Tegan.”

“ _Was_?” Orin repeated. “She is no longer with you?”

Teyla shrugged, the old pain welling up again in her heart. “She was taken by the Wraith, three years ago. Few of us are spared that fate. Did you truly know her?”

Orin shook his head, slowly, regretfully. “I’m sorry, I did not. The only Athosian ever met was a woman by the name of Charin, but she would be quite old by now. I was but a boy when she last visited Zephyr.”

“Then you can look forward to a reunion, as Charin is still among us, though fairly old indeed,” Teyla smiled in delight. “She will be pleased to meet an old friend.”

Orin visibly relaxed hearing that, and looked around him with true attention for the first time. 

“This isn’t Athos, though, is it?” he asked. “Or have your people turned their backs on their old ways and become settled?”

Teyla shook her head. “No; we are only guests here,” she replied, carefully avoiding to give a straight answer, at least until Charin would vouch for the man. “But I can take you to Athos for a visit with Charin, as soon as the healers have taken a look at you. What happened?”

Orin shrugged. “What always happens. The Wraith came; the guardians of the Ring were caught in surprise and had no time to warn the rest of us. Twenty-three people of my village have been taken… that was about five or six days ago; you cannot be sure within the Hive, where is no day and no night. Only seven of us have survived. My youngest son was taken just before these people saved us,” his shoulders sagged forward in grief. “He was my last child alive. Now I shall have to see how to raise my grandchildren alone… _if_ I’ll ever see Zephyr again.”

“Why should you not?” Teyla asked. “The people who rescued you are friends; allies. They will not prevent you from returning home… unless you want to come to Athos with us and live there, so that you can have help with raising your grandchildren.”

Orin thought about _that_ for a long while. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I think I’d prefer to return home, at least for now.”

“Then that is what you shall do,” Teyla said. “ _After_ the healers have looked at you and the others, that is.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Dusty led the rescue team back into the Wraith stronghold; she’d been the only one with Jack who’d got at least as far as the holding den. _That_ was empty, now that the unknown people had been rescued; only the large, scorched spots where the Wraith drones had disintegrated spoke of the short battle fought less than an hour before. _Zat_ guns did a thorough job at the third shot.

“This is where Captain Harkness and I parted ways,” Dusty told the others. “He sent me back to the gateship with the rescued people and continued his way alone.”

“Which corridor did he chose?” Bates asked.

“I don’t know,” Dusty admitted. “There’s only one corridor that can be accessed from her: this one. But I’ve never been further down it and hadn’t got the chance to see what might be there.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bates decided. “We’ll stay together for now. If the corridor forks after a while, we can still split up.”

“Yessir,” the others echoed and moved on.

The corridor _did_ fork after some fifty metres, and Bates split the group in two teams, hesitating a little which one he should assign Gwen to. McKinney’s stormy face promised mutiny, should he keep her with them; on the other hand he’d have preferred to keep an eye on her.

“I’ll take her with me,” Dusty offered, a frown of clear warning on her pretty, mahogany face.

Bates nodded in relief. “Shoot her if she tries anything stupid,” he suggested.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Dusty gave Gwen a grim smile. “I will.”

With that, she and Gwen took one corridor, while Bates and the other Marines went down the other one. Gwen followed the tough UNIT sergeant nervously, her Beretta on the ready. The corridor was almost completely dark and filled with a sour stench like acid. It made breathing hard. Gwen gagged and nearly threw up; Dusty scowled and shook her so hard that her teeth rattled.

“Breathe through your mouth,” the sergeant whispered,” and be quiet or else I’ll throw you at the Wraith myself, is that clear?”

Scared shitless, Gwen nodded mutely and did as she’d been told. Narrowing her eyes, Dusty listened to some noise that sounded like approaching footsteps – swift and heavy ones – from somewhere in front of them. Then she grabbed Gwen and pushed her into a small side tunnel opening on their left, following her quickly and noiselessly.

The footsteps came closer, and the stench of acid grew stronger. Dusty’s nostrils flared in disgust, but she was too professional to let her rebelling stomach bother her too much. Peeking out from her hiding place, she watched an alien creature – presumably one of the infamous Wraith – stalk past. 

It was huge; taller than even the biggest, beefiest Marine, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered. It looked damn hard to take down, too, but Dusty was used to that. She’d fought against Goa’uld and their Jaffa soldiers during her short stint with the SGC. It had long, lank white hair; its face was distorted by a big mouthful of teeth – or fangs? It looked like an extra from some idiotic, cheap vampire movie. Dusty could hear Gwen’s teeth clattering behind her, and that made her mad. If _she_ could hear it, then so would the Wraith, most likely.

And indeed, the Wraith paused and sniffed the air. Gwen froze in terror; Dusty’s grip tightened on her weapon. After a moment, the monster moved on, though, its footsteps echoing back down the corridor as it paced away. Before it could have disappeared within the shadows, Dusty left her hiding place, aimed at its broad back and fired her _zat’nikitel_ three times in rapid succession. The… the _thing_ disintegrated before it could have known what hit it.

“We don’t need nasty surprises,” Dusty commented icily. Dragging Gwen out of hiding, she led her down the silent, empty corridor. “And I thought getting in would be the hard part…”

Gwen didn’t answer. She was shaking so badly she could barely follow the other woman. Facing the bogeymen of the Pegasus galaxy for the first time was bad enough; the Wraith looked like a nightmare come true. But what frightened her even more was the cold-blooded, professional manner in which Dusty had killed the creature. Shot it in the back, without warning.

Of course, had she warned it, she might not have had the time for the all-important third shot. Who could tell how fast and resilient these things were? Still, there was something in Dusty’s cold professionalism that scared her shitless. Would people expect the same from her, now that she was part of the security forces? She wasn’t sure she could kill _anything_ in cold blood. Not even a monster like that.

“If you can’t then you’re useless,” Dusty told her coldly, making Gwen realize that she’d muttered things under her breath. “It’s them or us, and I’ll be damned if I let them eat any of our people for dinner.”

“But… but we can’t just go around and shoot people at first sight,” Gwen protested. “We should try to _talk_ to them. Perhaps we could find a peaceful solution…”

“ _Peaceful_?” Dusty snorted in disbelief. “Are you bloody _kidding_? Those things consider us, consider all humans _dinner_. Haven’t you listened to the Athosians? For the Wraith, we ain’t negotiation partners. We’re _food_ ; and one doesn’t discuss with one’s food.”

“Oh, and can we know for sure that the Athosians are telling the truth?” Gwen shot back. “We only have _their_ word.”

“And _that’_ s good enough for me,” Dusty replied. “You’ve been with Torchwood for a year or more and still haven’t learned that our duty is to protect mankind against alien threats?”

“Not _all_ aliens are malevolent,” Gwen said doggedly.

“No,” Dusty agreed. “Just the ones who kill and eat people. Like the Wraith. You’re bloody insane, you know that? Let’s go; we have here a job to do, or have you already forgotten that Captain Harkness is still missing?”

Gwen opened her mouth to give an indignant answer when a scream that echoed through the ship-thing's corridors, bouncing off damp walls and filling them with cold fear. It was a man’s scream, and both recognized the voice of Jack Harkness. Dusty couldn’t imagine what would a man like Captain Harkness scream like that, but she knew she had to stop it. 

“Jack!” Gwen screeched and bolted towards the sound before Dusty could have held her back.

Cursing a blue streak, the sergeant ran after the Torchwood-agent… and suddenly found herself on a balcony, overlooking a huge room. Above them, the ceiling stretched up into a honeycombed point – but what caught her attention was the nightmarish scene playing out below.

Captain Harkness was on his knees, and one red-haired Wraith, presumably a female, had he hand on – or in? – his chest. His head was flung back, he was shaking in wide-eyed horror, his face changing before her very eyes, his body aging visibly as the creature sucked the life out of him.

“You goddamn monster!” Gwen shrieked and emptied the entire cartridge of her Beretta right into the Wraith’s back.

“So much about a peaceful solution,” Dusty commented dryly, taking out the masked Wraith guards in the background with her _zat’nikitel_ , one after another.

Gwen didn’t even listen to her. Spotting a spiral staircase on the side of the balcony, she stormed down into the room below, ejecting the empty cartridge of her weapon and ramming home a fresh one.

“Jack!” she sobbed. “Hold on, I’m coming!”

A hideous alien screech sliced the air, and the female Wraith reared up, literally digging her fingers right into Jack’s chest. He screamed again and again, the sound inhuman and tortured, and he turned into a desiccated mummy before Gwen’s horrified eyes. The Wraith’s face was contorted with the pleasure of feeding, and the bullet holes in her torso were slowly sealing themselves up, healing themselves, in a mock parody of Jack’s own self-healing ability.

Jack slumped forward, said ability clearly unable to deal with this previously unknown challenge.

“Forgive me, _cariad_ ,” he whispered, barely audible; and then he was dead. He looked about ninety, his entire, immortal life drained by the monster who stood over him, pulling her blackened talons out of his chest.

“Leave him alone!” Gwen screamed, and she kept firing her Beretta as long as the bullets lasted… with the same effect – or the complete lack of it – as before.

The female Wraith threw her head back like a wolf when summoning for a hunt, her shriek piercing the air – and their heads – like a hot knife. All around them, the ground started to shudder, as if under the feet of hundreds of warriors.

“Dam it!” Dusty cursed. “She’s calling in reinforcements. Cooper, we have to go!”

“Not without Jack, we don’t!” Gwen shouted.

“He’s _dead_ , Cooper,” Dusty shouted back, “and so are we, unless we get out of here, now!”

But Gwen wasn’t listening. Instead, she looked around frantically for something, _anything_ that she could use instead of her now empty Beretta. She spotted a strange, fork-like weapon one of the Wraith guards killed by Dusty had dropped, picked it up and rammed it into the female Wraith’s front.

The Wraith screamed, arching her body, and Gwen pressed home the advantage, until the red-haired female fell to her knees. Sick with repugnance, Dusty watched Gwen run the weapon right through the Wraith, with a strength no-one would have expected from her, until the creature’s stomach was nothing but a sticky fountain of black blood as she collapsed to the ground.

“Heal from _that_!” Gwen grated, twisting the weapon viciously, while electric charges from the forked… thing ran through the Wraith’s twitching body.

Then she let go of the weapon and sank back, shaky with adrenaline and the after-effect of the Wraith weapon. For a moment, all they could hear was their own rasping breaths; then Dusty realized that everything had gone silent. The shaking of the female had stopped. No more Wraith were coming… for the moment.

She clicked her radio twice and received similar signs from both the gateship and Bates’ team, which was a relief.

“All teams, this is Sergeant Mehra,” she said. “Mission accomplished. Get back to the ship as fast as you can – we have to get out of here, quickly.”

“The bomb is ready and aimed,” Doctor Sato’s voice answered. “Corporal Rickman is on his way with it to your position.”

“Tell him to hurry up,” Dusty replied. “Everybody else – fall back.”

“Understood,” Back answered crisply.

At the same moment, Rickman arrived with the _naquadah_ warhead.

“Where should I place it, ma’am?” he gasped. He was a lot stronger than he looked, so that thing must have weighed a ton. Dusty only hoped it would pack an accordingly strong punch.

“Wherever you want,” she waved around them.

Rickman put down the bomb. Tosh came running after him and removed the key from around her neck.

“Let’s set this for detonation,” she said. "Twenty-minute delay. Dusty, do you know the disarm sequence?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dusty removed her own key. Together, they both turned their keys to activate the warhead, and Dusty set the timer for twenty minutes. The red numbers started counting down, and Dusty looked around to see if they’d forgotten anything.

That was when she realized that the Wraith female still wasn’t quite dead, not even after the carnage Gwen had wreaked. Blood seeped darkly from her mouth, her black eyes misting – and yet she was smirking anyway, a twisted grimace full of malevolent contentedness.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” she hissed, using the Traders’ Dialect. “We are merely the caretakers for those who sleep. When I die, the others will awaken…” her failing breath was a mere whisper; a triumphant whisper. “ _All of them_.”

“All of them?” Gwen repeated in confusion. “What’s she _talking_ about? How many can be left there anyway?”

Tosh stared at the Ancient life-sign detector she was holding in her hand. It showed white dots blooming all around them, like heavy snowfall.

“Too many to distinguish one from another,” she whispered, icy fear gripping her heart. “We’re surrounded.”

Dusty did a quick three-sixty, expecting the Wraith pouring in from all sides, but there was nothing so far. Only a deep rumble that seemed to be coming from the very depths of the fortress, as if the whole thing were stirring, coming back to life. What the hell…?

Dusty scanned the room again. Nothing... nothing but a soft sound that seemed to come from far above. She glanced up – and froze in terror.

Above them, the honeycombed dome was coming to life. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of individual cells began to glow with a deep yellow light, and inside them…

“Good Lord!” Dusty started back in horror but couldn’t quite turn her eyes away she was staring at the ceiling in morbid fascination.

The others followed her look and were equally shocked and repelled by the sight. Something was writhing in each cell like a maggot, struggling to life. Like a hundred maggots. A thousands of them… or several thousands. Only that they were all man-sized… or larger.

Suddenly an arm stabbed through the side of one of the leathery cells on the bottom row; a Wraith arm. The entire room was filling with hungry hisses as the Hive awakened, monster by monster, seeking blindly for food.

“Holy crap!” Dusty whispered. “What have we done?”

She instinctively lashed out at the arm dangling above her head with her Army knife, severing it at the shoulder joint. The arm plummeted to the ground, but – to her utter revulsion – it kept moving on, without being attached to the body of its owner, pulling itself forward with the help of its huge, claw-like fingers. Dusty shivered and shot it with her _zat’nikitel_ – only once, as she assumed the doctors of the expedition would like to examine it more closely. The arm jerked, shuddered, and eventually, it lay still.

Gwen’s dry heaves could be heard even above the cacophonic concert of hisses coming from the opening cells.

With a deep breath, Dusty forced her own rebellious stomach to behave.

“Doctor Sato,” she said, “we can’t afford the luxury of a twenty-minute countdown. Can you speed up a process a little? If we don’t blow up this thing now…”

Tosh nodded, a bit frantically, but her mind was focused. She was calculating in her head how fast they could run to reach the gateship, how quickly the little ships could flow, added one minute, just to be on the safe side, and then slapped the buttons on the timer of the _naquadah_ warhead. The timer stuttered and skipped ahead.

“Three minutes thirty seconds, and not a nanosecond longer,” Tosh told the others. “Run!”

“Wait!” Gwen cried in dismay. “We can’t leave Jack behind!”

Tosh whirled around. “Jack’s in there?”

“Yeah,” Dusty waved in the direction of the desiccated corpse. “But he’s _dead_.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Tosh glanced at Rickman. “Corporal, we must retrieve the body, no matter what he might look like. Captain Harkness can survive things no ordinary man can. We might be able to save him yet; but for that, we need to get him out of here. I can’t carry him, not even in this shape. Can _you_?”

“I can try,” Rickman carefully scooped up the brittle remains of Atlantis’ military commander and looked at them doubtfully. “Are you sure he isn’t dead? Looks pretty dead to me – like a mummy or whatnot.”

“No, I’m _not_ sure,” Tosh shepherded them out of the room with desperate urgency. “I haven’t said _that_. I said we _might_ save him yet… unless we dawdle here a little longer and get caught in the explosion. Now, _run_!”

They ran, Dusty dragging the nearly petrified Gwen after her and cursing like a sailor. The corridors were still dark, despite the ominous rumbling, and the further away they got from the waking nest of Wraith – from the _Hive_ – the quieter it became. All they could hear was the beat of their running feet and the rasp of their own breathing, but Dusty knew the Wraith were right behind them. They had to be. With her more acute hearing she could perceive the first echoing footsteps started ringing through the corridors in the distance.

“Life-signs?” she gasped, without slowing down.

Tosh risked a glance at the life-sign detector in mid-run. “It seems we’re alone… no, dammit! One small group’s dead ahead.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dusty said and kept running. “We can’t turn back. We’ll have to punch our way through… or shoot it free, actually.”

Suddenly, the air was filled with distant shrieking, just the noise the female Wraith had made – only that this time it was a discordant choir of voices… thousands of voices.

“They’re coming!” Gwen wailed. “They’re coming for us!”

“No shit, Sherlock!” Dusty replied sarcastically. Ahead, she could hear approaching footsteps, much closer than then ones behind them; she signalled the countdown to Tosh who’d her own _zat’nikitel_ on the ready. “Three, two, one… go!”

As one, they tuned out into the adjoining corridor, the one that led to the outside, ready to fire, and – Bates stood before them flanked by two of his team, all frozen with shock.

“Thank God!” Tosh sighed in relief.

Bates’ eyes were fixed on the lifeless body in Rickman’s arm. “Is that Captain Harkness? Is he dead?”

“Not yet, at least we hope so,” Tosh replied. “But we’ve only got minutes till the bomb goes off.”

Bates, used to deal with first things first, nodded abruptly and started to run with them. It felt like running ahead of the flood. They couldn’t _see_ the Wraith coming, but they _knew_ the monsters were right behind them, and if they let them catch up, they’d be dead. The corridors were empty, but the deep rumbling and muffled screeching didn’t abate for a moment.

The Wraith _were_ coming.

At last they broke free from the dank corridors and came out into the chill air of the planet. The faraway scent of pine trees and organic decay was a true relief after the acidic smell filling the Wraith stronghold… a relief that evaporated quickly as they looked down the rocks they’d climbed a few hours ago. Hamayouni _had_ parked the gateship as close to the entrance as possible, but that still meant they had to get down the rock wall somehow, taking the helpless (and probably dead) Jack with them.

“That won’t be easy,” Dusty judged, glancing at the giant red sun that was already sinking behind the mountain fortress. She clicked her radio. “Kaveh, give me directions – _or_ decloak the damn ship!”

“I don’t think _that_ would be such a good idea,” the edgy voice of their pilot answered. “Right now, the ship is secure, but it won’t be any longer if I drop the cloak. We’re having company.”

Dusty looked up and saw Wraith ships pouring out of the fortress on all sides – black darts against the blood-red sunset, like a swarm of vultures.

“I see,” she said, “but we had to fast-forward the bomb and will be caught in the explosion if we don’t leave within seconds. Drop the cloak, we’re on our way.”

“Very well,” Hamayouni replied after a short, tense pause, and then the gateship rematerialized, right at the foot of the rock.

They stumbled down the rocks in a great hurry, slipping and sliding on the wet stone, trying _not_ to break a leg in the process. Dusty looked back. In the side entrance of the Wraith fortress she could see the first Wraith appearing. That was not good. These monsters were faster than her own people, stronger, more deadly. They’d be on her team before they got anywhere near the gateship. She needed to stop them for those vital seconds, so that they’d be off-planet before the bomb got off.

“Bates!” she called. “Get them to the ship and get the hell out of here! I’ll take your six. Go-go-go!”

Bates didn’t hesitate for a moment. Staying behind was pure suicide, and they both knew that; but if she didn’t, they’d all die here. Dusty took a last look at them, saw “Boss” Teague help Rickman getting Captain Harkness’ body down the rock; then she turned back to the mountainside to face the Wraith.

Time seemed to dilate and slow down in the face of the knowledge that she was about to die, inevitably. She knew there were merely seconds left till the explosion, but those seconds seemed to stretch to eternity. It was eerily quiet all around her, save from he grunts of her fleeing comrades. Even the animals seemed to be muted. No birds, no rustling in the leaves. Perhaps they didn’t even exist on this planet – or maybe they sensed something in the air: a creeping, ice-cold danger.

Overhead, a lone Wraith ship screeched past but didn’t stop; it hadn’t spotted her. She fished the detonator out of her pocket and blew up the charges around the perimeter of the complex, creating a hindrance for their pursuers. The dozen or so small explosions echoed unnaturally loudly in the eerie silence… only to be swallowed by the really big one that, seconds later, tore the whole Wraith fortress to glowing pieces, burying Sergeant “Dusty” Mehra under its ruins, together with several thousand Wraith.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
They made it… barely. The very edge of the shock wave caught the tail of the gateship, but the shielding held. Bates looked down at the new crater on the face of the planet's surface, where the Wraith fortress had been, and shuddered to think of what might have happened hadn't they had the _naquadah_ warhead with them.

Next to Hamayouni, in the co-pilot’s seat, Toshiko was trying to catch her breath. 

“Everyone all right back there?” she asked.

“We’re… unharmed, Doctor Sato,” Bates answered grimly, avoiding to look at Gwen who was sitting with the body bag hiding Captain Harkness’ corpse, crying and sniffling. “I wouldn’t go as far as saying that we were _all right_. We’ve lost two good people today.”

“ _One_ ,” Tosh corrected. “There’s a small chance that Captain Harkness might recover; he’s ridiculously redundant. Just like Ancient tech. We’ll all miss Sergeant Mehra a good deal, though. She was a good soldier indeed; _and_ she saved us all in the last moment. Without her, we’d all be dead.”

“Are you sure we’ve managed to escape those… _things_?” Bates asked doubtfully.

“Reasonably sure,” Tosh replied. She thought _scanner_ and the HUD popped up. “No life-forms registering on the planet surface. And no flying objects in the air, aside from us.”

“Strange,” Bates commented. “I thought for sure they’d send some of those Dart things after us. Granted, they can’t see us when we’re cloaked, but they ought to know that the Stargate is our only way to escape. Or have they been all caught in the explosion?”

”P-perhaps they were confused,” Gwen offered. T-they were in some kind of cryo sleep, most of them. And I think the one I k-killed was their queen or… or something."

Tosh felt a monster headache coming her way. What had Gwen done _this_ time? At the same moment she realized the uncomfortable fact that with Jack out of the equation (hopefully not permanently), _she_ was responsible to get the team back in one piece… well, without Dusty, but that couldn’t be helped any more.

At least they made it out into open space. The planet was but a marble beneath them, and the Stargate spun before them slowly, invitingly.

“Dial us home,” she said to Hamayouni. “We’ll talk about what’s happened when we get there.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Their return to Atlantis resulted in mixed reactions. On the one hand, everyone was happy that they had come back to begin with. _And_ the fact that they’d dealt the Wraith a heavy blow was, as a reaction of the locals showed, no small feat.

“You have destroyed a Wraith Hive,” Teyla said, looking at them with something quite like awe. 

“We’ve blown up one of their outposts,” Tosh corrected. But Teyla shook her head.

“The Wraith do not build outposts; no stationary strongholds,” she explained. “What you have destroyed was most likely a Hive Ship that had slept on that planet for many years; hundreds of years perhaps, or even more. Your people could strike them while they were mostly asleep. What remains unclear is whether you struck them in time.”

The senior staff of the expedition – minus Jack Harkness – was staring at her as one person. As one _very_ confused person. Seeing the looks they were giving her, she shook her head, seemingly impatient with their lack of understanding… or dissatisfied with her own still somewhat limited language skills. It was hard to tell. 

“If you have destroyed the Hive too late, they will wake up, all of them,” she tired to explain as simply as possible. “ _All_ of them, _everywhere_. But if you destroyed them _before_ they could send a signal…”

”… then the rest of them still haven’t got a clue what happened,” Captain Magambo realized. “If we can find the locations of the other ships while they’re still hibernating, we can infiltrate them and destroy them.”

“Without waking their crew?” Dr. Shaw asked doubtfully.

“We are in the part of the cycle where they let their herd return to previous population levels,” Halling, who’d also been invited to the staff meeting, explained. “In such times they only keep a very small crew awake. Infiltrating the ships would be dangerous, yes, but it _could_ be done.”

“How many of these ships are we talking about?” Captain Price asked.

Halling shrugged apologetically. “We do not know. And we cannot tell _where_ they are sleeping, either. You must understand that we usually try our best to _avoid_ contact with them. Perhaps our trading partners know more. We can ask them.”

“But wouldn’t the wholesale destruction of a Hive Ship send out automated alarm signals? “ Markova asked. 

Teyla shook her head. “I do not think so. The Wraith must be used to disaster hitting one or two ships while they are on the ground, sleeping. Besides, they are rarely inclined to help each other. They are in constant fight for the feeding grounds, after all.”

“Have we seen any Wraith ships on the long-range scanners?” Dr. Shaw asked Grodin. 

The dark-skinned Englishman shook his head. “Nothing so far. But it can happen yet. They’ll need time to regroup, too, I guess,” he answered.

“How will we learn whether the rest of the Wraith has woken up or not?” Markova asked.

“ _If_ they have, we shall receive reports of increased intensity of cullings,” Teyla said grimly. “Let us hope it will not come to that.”

“It would be helpful if we could learn more about _how_ the Keeper of the Hive got killed,” Dr. Shaw looked at Captain Price. “Question Miss Cooper thoroughly. I want to know _everything_ that happened on that planet, and since Sergeant Mehra’s dead, she’s the only one who can tell us anything about it.”

“Well, there’s always Jack,” Tosh commented.

“ _If_ he wakes up again,” Captain Magambo said.

“I hope he will,” Tosh replied. ”He’s nothing if not resilient.”

“True,” Ianto, who’d been quiet and subdued during the entire meeting, spoke for the first time. “But there’s always a first time,” he rose from his seat. “If that was all, I’d like to return to Jack, Doctor Shaw. I’ll be working from down there if I’m needed.”

Liz Shaw nodded in compassion. “Of course, Ianto. Whatever makes it easier for you,” then she looked at the Athosian elders. “Please, contact your trading partners. If there is an increase in the frequency or magnitude of cullings, we’ll need to know to prepare ourselves. We’ll need strategies for all eventualities.”

“We’ll be working on it,” Captain Magambo promised. “Sergeant Bates will be a great help with that, I hope. _And_ Captain Harkness, if he wakes up.”

“ _When_ ,” Tosh corrected. “ _When_ he wakes up.”

“I wouldn’t hold my hopes too high,” Captain Price said grimly. “But whether he does or not, we need to be prepared.”

“That’s true,” Liz Shaw agreed. “Well; let’s do our best t make preparations, and while we are working on possible strategies, life must go on. We still have our daily jobs to do, no matter what. We’re here to learn and to explore; we won’t retire into a besieged fortress just because we’re afraid of the Wraith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue coming up next


	19. Epilogue: Consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the first story arc of Torchwoodgate, Episode One. There will be more to come, eventually. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride and will be back for the further episodes.
> 
> Beware the big, honking AU label. Everything that is different is meant to be different.

**CHAPTER 18 - EPILOGUE: CONSEQUENCES**

Carson Beckett was sitting in his office, in the infirmary of Atlantis, studying the personal file of Captain Jack Harkness. It was an interesting file – both what it included and what it didn’t. He shook his head in sorrow. The UNIT people were keeping some secret from him, that much was bloody certain. And that secret was somehow related to the military commander of their expedition.

They had brought Jack Harkness back to Atlantis in a body bag, and even though Miss Cooper had insisted that he wasn’t really dead, that he could take a lot and survive it all, he was taken to the morgue. From the medical personnel only Martha and Owen were allowed access to _the body_ , and when Carson protested, pointing out – and rightly so – that as the chief medical officer of the expedition, it was his right and his duty to know everything about their military commander’s condition, Liz Shaw overrode his protests.

“Captain Harkness’ condition is a secret known to all too many people already,” she said. “It’s his right to decide whom he’ll tell about it when he returns to us.”

“And if he doesnae return?” Carson asked.

“Then it’s a moot point anyway,” she replied with a sigh. “But I hope he does, for Ianto’s sake; because if he doesn’t, I cannot guarantee that Ianto would deal with it well.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The waiting for Jack’s return – or the proof that it wouldn’t happen, this time – lasted weeks. Weeks that Ianto practically spent in the morgue, holding his wizened hand, talking to him in a low voice, sometimes in English, but mostly in Welsh, because that was how he always talked to Jack when they were alone and intimate. 

Besides, only two people would have understood his words if secretly listening, and those two people had no access to the morgue. Professor Taylor had no interest to begin with, and Gwen was stopped by Owen when she tried.

“Keep out, Gwen,” the doctor said. “You’ve elbowed yourself into Ianto’s place once already. You don’t get to play the grieving widow again.”

Gwen stared at him with impossibly wide eyes, hurt and confused. “What are you _talking_ about? I just want to sit with him. _I was_ the one who saved him, wasn’t I?”

“That’s by no means certain yet, though we’re all glad that you’ve tried,” Owen replied. “It still doesn’t mean you'll get to sit with him. That’s Teaboy’s place now; had been the last time already. I was just too shocked and guilt-ridden to interfere. So leave them be. _If_ Jack comes back, he’d want to see Teaboy, not you. If he doesn’t… well, Teaboy will need some peace to come to terms with _that_ possibility.”

“Why wouldn’t he come back?” Gwen pressed the issue. “He always came back before, even after Abbadon. Even if it took him a little longer that time.”

“He never had an encounter with the Wraith before,” Owen pointed out logically. 

Gwen frowned, logic never having been her forte. “Why would the Wraith be any worse than Abbadon? I mean, Abbadon was the ultimate evil, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Owen replied tiredly. “I don’t know which one is worse: Abbadon, who wanted to extinguish all life, or the Wraith who simply want to _eat_. Sometimes simple, all-devouring hunger is the worst thing you can encounter. Do you remember the Brecon Beacons? Have you ever asked yourself whether Jack would have returned if those bloody cannibals had butchered and eaten him? No? Then think about it; and think about the Wraith. The possibilities are… discouraging, to say the least.”

He couldn’t continue his musings because Gwen suddenly became green around the gills, threatening to throw up all over him if he didn’t shut up. So he ushered her out of the anteroom of the morgue to recover somewhere else and went in to check on Jack’s condition.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
At first sight, he couldn’t see any difference. Jack still looked like a two-hundred-year-old desiccated mummy. Ianto, however, looked up to him with something akin to hope in his reddened eyes.

“Look,” he said, lifting Jack’s hand that he was holding. It was like the dried claw of some great, dead bird, shrunken flesh pulling back from the fingernails that seemed way too long, curved and yellow-ish, now that the body they belonged to was no longer alive.

“What am I supposed to look at?” Owen growled. “It’s the same as it was last week. No difference at all.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” Ianto said, moving the cramped fingers gently. At first Owen couldn’t understand what he meant, but then, all of a sudden, realization hit.

Jack’s fingers could be _moved_! Granted, they were still cramped and withered, but no longer stiff and brittle, as the fingers of a desiccated corpse would be. Using the alien diagnostic kit, Owen hurriedly checked Jack’s vitals. There were still no life-signs at all, but the suddenly elastic fingers gave some basis for hope. Nonetheless, Owen didn’t trust the signs and ordered Jack to be kept in the morgue, until they could be more certain that he would, in truth, return again. He only told about it Martha and Tosh, for the time being.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
During the following week Jack’s body slowly, gradually regained some elasticity. After some hesitation Martha and Owen decided to put his still unresponsive body on a saline drip, and as a result his wrinkled skin began to smooth out more and more with each passing day. He still didn’t show any life-signs, but started – mysteriously – build back some muscle mass, despite the general lack of nutrients. Owen and Martha didn’t want to feed him through an IV-drop, as they had no idea how _that_ might interfere with the regeneration of his life energy. But he _was_ getting better, by the look of him, even though he still registered dead on the instruments.

Finally, three and a half weeks after his death by Wraith, he gasped alive again, bolted upright on the stretcher, eyes sightless and wide with blind panic, voice hoarse from the long lack of use.

“Ianto!” he rasped desperately. “Ianto, where are you? Are you safe?”

“I’m here, _cariad_ ,” Ianto took him in his arms and rocked him like a frightened child. “I’ll be here as long as I can; and I’m glad that you’re back with me again.”

His low, soothing voice seemed to ground Jack again, who calmed down considerably, the panic gone from his eyes that now seemed to measure up his surroundings consciously once again.

“The morgue,” he said dryly. “How… predictable. How long was I dead this time?”

“Three and a half weeks,” Ianto told him simply. Jack was shocked by that news a little.

“That long, huh?” he tried to be nonchalant about it and failed miserably. He shivered. “Perhaps that’s why I feel like shit – this is a new record. Never been dead in one stretch for that long,” he raised his hand and turned it back and forth before his eyes, checking it out. “Looks the same as always. Does the rest of me look the same, too?”

Ianto swallowed hard. “Mostly,” he replied, finding Jack more beautiful and gorgeous than ever, despite the slight changes. “Save for a few new grey hairs at your temple. Looks dashing, though.”

“What?!” Jack tried to jump from the stretcher and nearly collapsed, his legs shaky from the long lack of use. “Do you have a mirror?”

“Yeah, ‘cos morgues are usually equipped with such things,” Ianto replied dryly. “Don’t be so vain, it’s just a few grey hairs, _and_ they suit you.”

“You don’t understand,” Jack muttered darkly. “I found the first ever grey hair after the Abbadon incident, and you know _that_ wasn’t an ordinary death.”

“Neither was this one,” Ianto pointed out.

Jack shot him a dark glare. “Exactly. Now, does it mean I’m gonna die permanently if getting drained by the Wraith often enough, or will I just age really fast and live forever like a dried-out husk? ‘Cos _that_ wouldn’t be an existence I’d prefer.”

Ianto had no answer to that, and neither did Martha or Owen later, when they examined Jack. All his vitals checked out as they used to – with the small yet significant difference that they were the vitals of a completely healthy forty-year-old, while earlier he’d seemed to be frozen at the permanent age of thirty-five. Being drained by the Wraith apparently had taken from him the equivalent of five years. What _that_ would mean in the long run was everybody’s guess.

“We need to research Wraith genetics in true depth,” Carson Beckett declared, when he was finally let in into the secret. “Search the Ancient database for related species to learn more about their origins. Perhaps we’ll find a clue how their life-drainin’ goes and what effect it exactly has on the human body.”

“Aside from killing it within moments, you mean?” Owen asked sarcastically. 

Carson nodded. “Aside from that part, aye. The main question isnae _what_ they do; it is _how_ they do it, and whether they feed on human life energy alone.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The debriefing after Jack’s full recovery took place in Atlantis, in a fairly exclusive circle. Aside from the ranking military officers and the science department heads, only Teyla and Halling had been invited. Martha was present by default, of course, together with Owen, as they already knew about Jack’s unique nature… something that Dr. Shaw still intended to keep as confidential as humanly possible.

“We must realise that what many of us might see as an advantage – or even as a secret weapon – could turn out as the biggest liability for all,” she pointed out; then she looked at Teyla. “What, do you think, would happen if the Wraith learned about Captain Harkness’ regenerative abilities?”

The Athosian Elder was still digesting the shocking news about Jack’s nature; and it wasn’t an easy thing for her, or for Halling, either. It had uncomfortable reminiscences of Wraith regenerative powers. But they both tried their best. She looked at Jack gravely.

“They would consider him as an undepletable food source,” she answered. “They would hunt him and fight each other for the chance to possess him. And they would destroy everyone in their way to get to him.”

“That is exactly what I was afraid of,” Liz Shaw said. “I hope everyone understands now why we must keep this to ourselves?”

There were nods of agreement all around. Dr. Shaw turned to Beckett.

“Carson, have you come up with any useful results about the effect of Wraith feeding on Jack’s life?” she asked. 

Beckett shook his head. “Not yet, Liz. We still know way too little about Wraith physiology and practically nothin’ about their evolution. All I can tell ye is that Wraith cells have none of the normal human proteins that inhibit regeneration, which isnae surprising. They’re not human, after all… although _what_ they are, exactly, is still everyone’s guess.”

“What our people have seen certainly supports that,” Captain Price said thoughtfully. “An arm, crawling across the floor all by itself… like something out of a really bad B-movie…”

Beckett shrugged. “As far as independent behaviour goes,” he explained, “I’d say that any movement they saw was caused by a residual command language in the severed nerve endings.”

“I see,” Liz Shaw was one of the few present who actually understood that statement. “Did you find out anything else?”

For a moment, Beckett hesitated.

“Well,” he finally said. “The creature that arm came from? I couldae hazard a good guess that it was very, very old.”

“ _How_ old?” Dr. Shaw asked quietly.

“As long as the cells are properly nourished,” Beckett answered slowly, “I cannae see any of those… those life-forms ever dyin’ of natural agein’ the way we do,” he paused, then added grimly. “And they’d be bloody hard to kill.”

“Hard, but not impossible,” Halling said. “The surest method is beheading. Not even they could regenerate from _that_.”

“The truly hard part is getting close enough to behead them without getting eaten first, of course,” Teyla added dryly.

The expedition members grinned, remembering a similar discussion taking place a few weeks earlier. People had been discussing whether the Wraith could be killed with the same methods hypothetical vampires would be. The consensus had been that holy water and garlic would most likely be _not_ effective, although fire probably would.

“In any case,” Martha turned the discussion back to the actual topic,” we need to learn more about the Wraith. Especially about the evolution of their species. The more we learn about Wraith genetics, the better a picture we can make about their effects on Jack’s life.”

“Have you found anything in the Ancient database related to Wraith genetics?” Markova asked. 

Martha sighed. “Not yet; but I’m sure we will, eventually. They’ve fought the Wraith for a long time; they ought to have data about them. The problem is finding the right keywords, so that Toshiko’s search program could work. We know practically nothing about Ancient medical vocabulary, and our little alien iPod isn’t fully compatible with Ancient technology. But we’re working on it.”

“Work on it harder,” Liz Shaw said. “I’ll assign Peter and Doctor Kusanagi to this project; it has absolute priority,” she glanced at Grodin, and the Englishman nodded in agreement. Then she turned back to Teyla. “Have your people heard any news about an increased amount of cullings?”

“Not yet,” the Athosian leader replied, “but that does not necessarily mean there would not be any. The sleeping Hives are scattered all across the stars; even if they are, indeed, waking up, it will take time for them to fall over the feeding grounds in great numbers.”

The Earth people shivered at the causal manner she was speaking about that horror. But again, for Pegasus galaxy citizens this was something they always had to take into consideration.

“What are we doing if they will, indeed, wake up?” Captain Magambo asked. “ _If_ that happens, we’ll be responsible. After all, it was Cooper who woke them up by killing the female Keeper.”

“She did it to save Jack,” Owen pointed out. 

Magambo nodded. “I know that, Doctor. I’m not blaming her. Especially in the light of our new knowledge what it would mean for us if the Wraith learned about Captain Harkness’ nature,” this had become the euphemism they used to describe Jack’s immortality; something that still made uncomfortable those few who knew about it. “Nevertheless, it will still be our responsibility if hungry Wraith hordes fell over helpless words. _More_ hungry Wraith hordes than usual, that is.”

“You should not blame yourselves,” Halling said calmly. “Yes, it was the doing of one of your people, but she had no way to know about the consequences. Not even _we_ knew that killing the Keeper might wake them all… or do you believe any of us would have acted differently?”

“We’re still responsible,” Jack said quietly. This was the first time he spoke during the debriefing, and he looked more troubled than anyone had ever seen him.

Halling nodded. “In a sense, you are. So accept your responsibility and act upon it. But wallowing in guilt will help no-one. You had found a vulnerability; use it to your advantage.”

“How?” Captain Price asked with a frown. “ _If_ they are awakening right now, we’d hardly be able to hit them during their sleeping cycle again.”

“Perhaps not,” Bates agreed. “But we still have an advantage: the cloaked gateships.”

“Guerrilla warfare!” Jack’s eyes came alive with understanding. “Get in, place a bomb, and get out before it goes off… you know, Sergeant, it could actually work!”

“Until we run out of _naquadah_ warheads,” Professor Taylor reminded him, drumming his fingers on the table nervously.

Jack shrugged. “If we do, we'll find other ways to destroy a Hive ship. There are a number of methods to blow things up.”

The professor’s eyes narrowed behind the thick glasses he wore to balance out his extreme myopia. “Are you _sure_ that'd be an effective use of our resources? We weren’t sent here to fight a war. It isn’t even _our_ war…”

“Somehow I doubt we’d be able to persuade the Wraith about _that_ ,” Markova commented dryly. Then she turned to Zelenka. “Radomir Aleksandrovich, could we, with our current resources, build more nuclear warheads, should the need arise?”

The scruffy little Czech thought about that for a moment… then he shook his head.

“ _Ne_ ,” he replied, seeming more relieved than disappointed; apparently, the idea of building a nuclear bomb didn’t appeal to him. “Not without _naquadah_ or similar energy source.”

“Look in the Ancient database for planets where we may find _naquadah_ ,” Markova ordered. “The Ancients had to get it from somewhere,” seeing Zelenka’s unhappy face, she added. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we must be prepared. We need a weapon to protect ourselves.”

“Is it not the way war always begins?” Zelenka asked quietly; then he sighed and gave in. “Of course, Svetlana Mihailovna. We’ll try our best.”

“We should also keep looking for outposts where we might find new ZedPMs,” Tosh added. “Without at least _one_ we cannot hope to operate either the command chair or the shield properly; not to mention operating them at the same time.”

Liz Shaw nodded in agreement. “That should be our primary goal indeed. However, we might profit from the contact with technically advanced civilizations here, in the Pegasus galaxy. Perhaps our Athosian friends can be of assistance with that?”

Teyla and Halling exchanged thoughtful looks.

“There are very few that can be considered,” Teyla finally said. “You must understand: the Wraith do not allow their herds to develop beyond a certain level of technology and become a real threat. When a society grows beyond that level, they did not simply cull that planet – they destroy it as a pre-emptive measure.”

“But there _are_ such that we could consider?” Captain Magambo insisted.

The two Athosians exchanged looks again. “You could try Olesia,” Halling suggested after a moment of consideration. “Or Hoff. They are not on _your_ level of technology yet – no world I have ever visited is – but…”

“… but we could help them develop further,” Dr. Shaw finished for him. “ _And_ protect them from the Wraith as well as we can.”

“ _If_ we can,” Jack warned. “And if they’re willing. It would be a great risk for them. We cannot force them to take it.”

“True,” Captain Price admitted. “It’s worth a try, though.”

The others nodded.

“Good,” Dr. Shaw said. “We’ve sketched the plan for the near future, then. Let’s adjourn this meeting and begin with the real work.”

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Jack was relieved when the debriefing finally ended and he and Ianto could return to their shared quarters, situated in the wing of Atlantis where all other married couples lived when in the city. He felt weary beyond measure. Dying in itself was nothing new for him, but feeling the life being sucked out of him, the monster feeding on him, growing stronger and stronger while he was growing weaker and weaker had been an experience that had shaken him to the bone.

He also understood that – should word about his immortality _ever_ reach the Wraith – he’d never have a safe moment for the rest of his life. Which, in his special case, was a damn long time. The thought of being captured by those creatures and used as some sort of milch cow made him shiver with fear. For the first time since he’d become… well, whatever he was now… he was deadly afraid. Not even the return to their home could make him feel safe again. He wondered whether he’d find back to his former joy in life eventually.

“Hey,” Ianto, attuned to his moods, as always, took him into a tight hug and kissed his neck. ”You’re trembling, _cariad_. Why don’t you take off that uniform and let me pamper you a little? Have you known that our quarters are equipped with a very nice bath, complete with a hot tube?”

“A bath would be good, especially having spent weeks in the morgue,” Jack agreed. “But I need more than that tonight. I need _you_.”

“You’ve got me,” Ianto kissed him, and Jack opened up to him eagerly, filling his senses with Ianto’s scent and taste, desperate to drive out the memory of the Wraith. 

The memory of death and decay.

“Bath first,” Ianto ordered, breaking the kiss reluctantly. “You still stink of the morgue.”

Jack followed him obediently, and the two of them soaked in the surprisingly spacious bathtub for an hour or so, enjoying the rare chance to spend some leisure time on Atlantis together. Since the rising of the city they’d been mostly on different planets; or in Ultima Thule where privacy was still somewhat limited. This was practically the first time they could explore the comforts of their quarters.

After two rounds of frantic sex in the bathtub and a refreshing shower afterwards, they relocated to the bedroom to test the possibilities of the Ancient-issue mattress. Making love had usually been something that helped Jack to deal with the horrors of his unusual existence, and this time it promised to be a real marathon, as he had brand new and intense horrors to deal with. It took him half the night to calm down gradually, enough to at least talk about what had happened on the Hive Ship. He wouldn’t have done so before, but he’d come to value Ianto’s insights and soothing presence since they’d been married.

Talking about his most recent death took the other half of the night. He doubted he’d ever be able to talk to anyone else about it, but Ianto… Ianto had become the one fixed point within the changes around him. Being with Ianto meant _safety_ … such as it would ever be possible after what had just happened.

“Things will never be what they used to be, will they?” he murmured. “Never again.”

“True,” he could hear the smile in Ianto’s voice, even with his eyes closed. “For starters, you owe Gwen your life now. Without her, you’d be either the food replicator of the Wraith, or floating in a thousand pieces around that planet.”

Jack frowned. “That’s a disquieting thought,” he admitted.

“But true nonetheless,” Ianto stated calmly. “You should think about it, and what it would mean for your future relationship.”

“I don’t _have_ a relationship with Gwen!” Jack protested.

“I meant _working_ relationship,” Ianto corrected, rolling his eyes, although Jack couldn’t see _that_ in the darkness of their quarters. 

Jack laughed quietly. "I know. I just couldn’t resist the temptation to tease you a little.”

“You never can,” Ianto scolded him; but it was all pretence. He was glad that after such a traumatic experience – not to mention after having been dead for _weeks_ – Jack could still laugh and keep his sense of humour.

“Guilty as charged,” Jack admitted; then, after a lengthy pause, he added. “There’s something I’d like to tell you, but you twenty-first century guys find such things cheesy.”

“What?” Ianto asked softly when Jack trailed off. Jack swallowed hard.

“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me for a very long time,” he admitted. “I hadn’t allowed myself to fall in love, to really fall in love for decades, because I’d been so afraid to lose more loved ones. Until _you_ came into my life. I… I don’t know what I’d do without you. Especially now. I couldn’t deal with this alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Ianto gathered him in his arms and pulled him against his chest. “I’ll do my best not to leave you until I’m old and feeble. In the meantime… we have a new galaxy to explore. Together. What else could we ask for?”

That wasn’t enough to cast away all of Jack’s fears – far from it – but for the time being, it had to be enough. They’d deal with the rest when the time came.

~The End – for now~


End file.
